Does a smartphone on the desk drain our brain? No evidence of cognitive costs due to smartphone presence in a short-term and prospective memory task

Effects of cell phone presence on the control of visual attention during the Navon task

BACKGROUND

Although cell phones can provide great convenience to our lives, research has shown that they can also affect our behavior, even when not in use. It seems that having a cell phone nearby may not be ideal when the user needs to concentrate on work. However, little is known about whether cell phone presence specifically impairs attentional control.

METHODS

This study investigated whether cell phone presence can influence attentional control in the Navon task, which involves spatial switching of attention between global and local levels.

RESULTS

It was found that the reaction time for all types of trials decreased when the participants had a cell phone nearby compared to when they had a mobile battery nearby. It was also found that phone dependency led to more incorrect responses among participants, but this effect was independent of the influence of phone presence on the Navon task performance.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings indicate that cell phone presence may have a positive influence on the perceptual process of the Navon letter, suggesting that the effects of phone presence are not always negative. One implication provided by this study is that it is possible to challenge the assertion that cell phones should always be excluded from the workplace by highlighting the positive effects of their presence.

Does the Brain Drain Effect Really Exist? A Meta-Analysis

Smartphones have become an indispensable part of everyday life. Given the current debate about the use of smartphones in classrooms and schools, it seems appropriate to examine their effects on aspects of cognitive performance in more detail. Ward and colleagues not only demonstrated the negative effect of smartphones on cognitive performance but also showed that the mere presence of these devices can have this effect-this is known as the Brain Drain effect. In the present article, a meta-analytic approach was adopted in order to verify these findings. Here we show a significant overall negative effect of smartphone use and presence. In a database search we identified 22 studies with a total of 43 relevant effects that could be assigned to the categories "memory", "attention", and "general cognitive performance". A subgroup analysis suggests that not all cognitive domains are equally affected by the negative effect of smartphones. The heterogeneity of the effects reinforces this finding. The nationality of the test subjects or the origin of the studies was identified as a further key variable. Our findings also indicate that the distracting effect of smartphones varies on the area studies and further research is necessary. In view of the present research results, it seems important that people in general, and especially children and adolescents in schools and classrooms, learn how to deal with the distracting potential of smartphones.

A Review on Smartphone Keystroke Dynamics as a Digital Biomarker for Understanding Neurocognitive Functioning

Can digital technologies provide a passive unobtrusive means to observe and study cognition outside of the laboratory? Previously, cognitive assessments and monitoring were conducted in a laboratory or clinical setting, allowing for a cross-sectional glimpse of cognitive states. In the last decade, researchers have been utilizing technological advances and devices to explore ways of assessing cognition in the real world. We propose that the virtual keyboard of smartphones, an increasingly ubiquitous digital device, can provide the ideal conduit for passive data collection to study cognition. Passive data collection occurs without the active engagement of a participant and allows for near-continuous, objective data collection. Most importantly, this data collection can occur in the real world, capturing authentic datapoints. This method of data collection and its analyses provide a more comprehensive and potentially more suitable insight into cognitive states, as intra-individual cognitive fluctuations over time have shown to be an early manifestation of cognitive decline. We review different ways passive data, centered around keystroke dynamics, collected from smartphones, have been used to assess and evaluate cognition. We also discuss gaps in the literature where future directions of utilizing passive data can continue to provide inferences into cognition and elaborate on the importance of digital data privacy and consent.

The mere presence of a smartphone reduces basal attentional performance

The smartphone has become an indispensable part of everyday life. It enables endless possibilities and offers persistent access to a multiplicity of entertainment, information, and social contacts. The development towards a greater use and a persistent presence of the smartphone does not only lead to advantages, but also raises potential for negative consequences and a negative influence on attention. In this research, the hypothesis of the mere smartphone presence leading to cognitive costs and a lower attention is being tested. The smartphone may use limited cognitive resources and consequently lead to a lower cognitive performance. To investigate this hypothesis, participants aged 20-34 perform a concentration and attention test in the presence and absence of a smartphone. The results of the conducted experiment imply that the mere presence of a smartphone results in lower cognitive performance, which supports the hypothesis of the smartphone presence using limited cognitive resources. The study as well as the subsequent results and the resulting practical implications are presented and discussed in this paper.

Smartphone use and daily cognitive failures: A critical examination using a daily diary approach with objective smartphone measures

While smartphones have brought many benefits and conveniences to users, there is continuing debate regarding their potential negative consequences on everyday cognition such as daily cognitive failures. A few cross-sectional studies have found positive associations between smartphone use and cognitive failures. However, several research gaps remain, such as the use of cross-sectional designs, confounds related to stable individual differences, the lack of validity in self-report measures of smartphone use, memory biases in retrospective self-reports, and the lack of differentiation between smartphone checking and smartphone screen time. To simultaneously address the aforementioned shortcomings, the current study examined the within-person associations between various objective indicators of smartphone use and daily cognitive failures using a 7-day daily diary study. Multilevel modelling revealed that smartphone checking, but not total smartphone screen time, predicted a greater occurrence of daily cognitive failures at the within-person level. Surprisingly, we also found negative within-person associations between smartphone screen time for social- and tools-related applications and daily cognitive failures, suggesting that some types of smartphone use may temporarily benefit one's cognitive functioning. This finding demonstrates the importance of studying the specific functions of smartphone use and their differential cognitive consequences, as well as highlights the complex relations between smartphone use and cognition.

Reexamining the "brain drain" effect: A replication of Ward et al. (2017)

The present study was a pre-registered direct replication of Ward et al.'s (2017) second experiment (OSF pre-registration found at: https://osf.io/5fq4r). This replication assigned both smartphone location (on desk, in pocket/bag, or outside of the testing room) and smartphone power (on, or off) for a total of six conditions. Participants completed an automated operation span (OSpan) task, a Cue-Dependent Go/No-Go task, and the smartphone attachment and dependency inventory. It was hypothesized that performance on an attention-demanding task (i.e., the OSpan task) would be worse for those in closer proximity to their smartphone (on desk) and that those with greater smartphone attachment and dependency would have a larger "brain drain" effect. Using the same tasks and conditions as in Ward et al.'s (2017) second experiment, the present study found that the "brain drain" effect did not replicate: there was no difference between smartphone location conditions on performance on either the o-span task or the go/no-go task. These findings demonstrate that the mere presence of one's smartphone may not be enough to affect cognitive performance. Understanding these effects is crucial in a time where smartphones are a basic necessity.

The Impact of Enhancing Phone Activeness on the Negative Effect Induced by the Presence of a Cell Phone

In the information-driven workplace, cell phones have gradually become irreplaceable. Although the use of work-related cell phones can bring convenience, recent research has demonstrated that the presence of a cell phone can impair cognitive task performance by reducing available attentional resources and suggested that the effect of the phone’s presence can be influenced by phone-related factors. This study focused on the relationship between this effect and phone activeness and conducted two experiments to investigate whether increasing phone activeness is associated with a stronger effect from the phone’s presence by using a dual-task paradigm (primary: letter recognition task, secondary: luminance-change detection task). Phone activeness was manipulated by two potential factors: the phone’s power state (control, powered-off, powered-on) and physical contact state (the phone was placed on the desk or held in the hand). The results showed that secondary task performance decreased with the phone’s presence, regardless of its power state and contact state. This indicated that the presence of the phone only affects the available attentional resources devoted to the peripheral visual field where the secondary task stimuli occurred; however, the effect of the phone’s presence was not moderated by phone activeness. The current findings provided several extended understandings related to the negative effects caused by the presence of the cell phone and their underlying mechanisms.

Effects of the presence of a cell phone and exposure to natural environments on remote associates task performance

In today's advanced information society, creativity in work is highly valued, and there is growing interest in the kinds of work environments that produce more creative outcomes. Recent researchers have demonstrated that when environmental factors change a worker's attentional state to a diffused state, the worker has access to more information than usual, which can contribute to creativity. Here, we examined whether manipulating environmental factors (the presence of a cell phone and exposure to natural environment) that could affect such attention states would improve performance on the Remote Associates Task, a measure of creativity. Our results showed that the presence of a cell phone increased creative performance regardless of immersion in natural environment. In contrast, exposure to nature did not facilitate creative performance; instead, feelings of pleasure increased, and frustration decreased. These results suggest that the presence of a cell phone can enhance creativity by influencing workers' attentional states. The current study provides a meaningful approach to enhancing creativity by modulating attentional states through environmental factors. It also highlights the essential features of environmental factors that can moderate creative abilities.

Fear of Missing Out Predicts Distraction by Social Reward Signals Displayed on a Smartphone in Difficult Driving Situations

Smartphones are particularly likely to elicit driver distraction with obvious negative repercussions on road safety. Recent selective attention models lead to expect that smartphones might be very effective in capturing attention due to their social reward history. Hence, individual differences in terms of Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) – i.e., of the apprehension of missing out on socially rewarding experiences – should play an important role in driver distraction. This factor has already been associated with self-reported estimations of greater attention paid to smartphones while driving, but the potential link between FoMO and smartphone-induced distraction has never been tested empirically. Therefore, we conducted a preliminary study to investigate whether FoMO would modulate attentional capture by reward distractors displayed on a smartphone. First, participants performed a classical visual search task in which neutral stimuli (colored circles) were associated with high or low social reward outcomes. Then, they had to detect a pedestrian or a roe deer in driving scenes with various levels of fog density. The social reward stimuli were displayed as distractors on the screen of a smartphone embedded in the pictures. The results showed a significant three-way interaction between FoMO, social reward distraction, and task difficulty. More precisely, under attention-demanding conditions (i.e., high-fog density), individual FoMO scores predicted attentional capture by social reward distractors, with longer reaction times (RTs) for high rather than low social reward distractors. These results highlight the importance to consider reward history and FoMO when investigating smartphone-based distraction. Limitations are discussed, notably regarding our sample characteristics (i.e., mainly young females) that might hamper the generalization of our findings to the overall population. Future research directions are provided.