Can Your Phone Hurt Your Thinking? Why Keeping It Close Might Not Be the Best Idea

 We all know the struggle of focusing on work while our phones buzz and beckon from our pockets. However, research shows the negative impact goes beyond just notifications. Even a silent phone sitting there can hurt your ability to concentrate and complete tasks. Liu and colleagues (2022) call this the cell phone presence effect, which describes how the mere presence of your phone can drain your cognitive resources. Your brain is constantly guarded if you miss an important call or text. This divided attention makes it harder to focus on the task at hand, impacting things like working memory, attention span, and overall cognitive performance. Liu and colleagues (2022) give us some bad news:

1. The closer your phone is and the more notifications it throws your way, the worse this effect gets. 
2. Studies have shown that phones on desks are more distracting than silenced phones tucked away in pockets or even in another room.

Liu and colleagues (2022) built on previous work where participants completed two tasks at once:

1. One task is in their central vision, and another is in their peripheral vision.
2. They focused on how aware you are of potential information on your phone, calling this phone activeness, and they created three levels:
1. Not active: powered off the phone -  no distractions
2. Low active: Powered on the phone, silent - you might see a notification light
3. High active: Powered on the telephone with notifications  - most distracting.

The researchers hypothesized that the more active your phone appears, the more it will distract you. They also expected a vibrating phone to be the most distracting because touch is more challenging to ignore than sight or sound.

Cell Phones and Attention: It's Complicated

Liu and colleagues (2022) concluded the following with their study:

1. Regardless of being powered on, having a phone nearby hurts performance on a task requiring focus on faint light changes way off to the side - think glancing at your phone while working on your computer - this means our attention is drawn to our phones even when they're not actively demanding it.
2. The researchers expected powered-on phones to be more distracting, but the effect was weak and inconsistent. There was only one specific situation where a powered-on phone was slightly more distracting than a powered-off phone,
3. Holding the phone only affected performance in a particular situation - detecting the closest light changes. The effect was small, and the researchers are still determining exactly why it happened.
4. Interestingly, when a phone was on, participants responded faster to identify letters on the screen, but their accuracy decreased. This suggests that people prioritize speed over getting things right when their phone is around.

Hold on, There's More to the study by Liu and colleagues in 2022:

1. The study has limitations. Participants didn't use their phones, making them seem less relevant and distracting.  Also, the two tasks required different levels of focus, making it hard to say how phones affect both.
2. The Bottom Line: Cell phones steal some attentional resources, but the effect of phone state (on/off) and whether you hold them is weaker than expected. Future research using people's phones and similar tasks is needed to get a clearer picture.

References

1. Liu, Wenjuan & Dempo, Akihiko & Shinohara, Kazumitsu. (2022). The Impact of Enhancing Phone Activeness on the Negative Effect Induced by the Presence of a Cell Phone. Frontiers in Psychology. 13. 920878. 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.920878.