Have you ever noticed how much more reliant we are on our smartphones?
Have you noticed how often you check your phone?
Have you noticed how lazy you become with this small rectangle in your pocket?
But have you ever considered the profound impact they could be doing on our brains?
It’s incredible that a tiny rectangle in your pocket can do so much, but even more surprising is the evidence from small experiments and studies that shows smartphones alter how the brain functions and can have an impact on cognitive function even when they are turned off.
Let explore the world of smartphones, including their launch date, impact on memory, stress levels, and cognitive ability, as well as how they increase the likelihood of smartphone addiction.
Origin of the smartphone dependency
The first iPhone(smartphone), a cell phone with a touch screen instead of buttons, was introduced in 2007. It had no online shop, very few apps, and nothing else in the beginning. Comparing it to today’s standers, it was simpler.
However, all of a sudden, a big touch screen interface replaced the buttons. On their desktops, users could now swipe, tap, scroll, and zoom more effectively. The phone becomes larger, more features are added, and the software gets better every year. Apps started to be beneficial, but then feeds and algorithms appeared. Apps are made to cause dopamine reactions in your brain, while algorithms are made to hold your attention.
Early on, smartphones were incredibly popular, but as time went on, concerns about them were voiced.
Warning Signs
carrying out in 2008, when the full impact of smartphones remained unclear Grey Small, a psychiatrist at UCLA, started raising the warning flag, stating that:
“An excessive amount of time spent on technology can cause the brain to become less adept at basic social skills like interpreting others’ facial expressions during a conversation. Thus, the brain circuits responsible for face-to-face communication weaken. This could result in social awkwardness, a lack of ability to read nonverbal cues, loneliness, and a decreased interest in conventional classroom instruction.”
Yet, brain scientist Tracey Shors of Rutgers University thinks that while being hard to confirm, his argument is “pretty interesting and certainly provocative.”
In addition to this, several authors and scientists have published articles raising concerns about smartphones, including:
“ ways your smart phone making you dumber”
—– by Rob Asghar—–
“7 reason smart phone make you lazy”
—–by Charles Crawford—–
“Is your smart phone making you fat and lazy”
——by Monte Morin—–
“Have smart phones destroyed a generation”
—— by Jean M. Twenge—–
The aforementioned research and writings by scientists and authors have demonstrated how smartphones impair our cognitive functions and make us lazy and stupid.
I’ll offer you a few short examples of how using a smartphone reduces our productivity and impairs our mental faculties.
- For instance, we depend on the calculator on our smartphone when we need to compute little amounts of data rather than using our brains, which can impair our mental faculties.
- Rather of considering the answers later, we can just take out our phones and Google any questions we might have about the world we live in. In a sense, smartphones make us lazy since we just utilize an iPhone app to remind us of our daily tasks rather than trying to remember appointments, meetings, or dates.
- We created applications that take care of things for us. Anyone with money may find contractors to clean and shop for them using an app like Task-rabbit even put together brand-new furniture.
- An application for local assistance Zaarly assists you in finding a cake baker.
Thus, we’ve developed apps that do various jobs for us, such as cleaning and holding for customer support. Although certain services are helpful, over-reliance on them might result in indolence.
Your brain is getting rewired by smartphones
Let’s examine the study to see just what a smartphone is doing to our personalities and thoughts.
How our minds affected abstractly by smartphones?
We will discuss memory, addiction, cognitive function and stress in this. Let’s start.
- Memory
Back in the day in math class, you used to have to learn all of your classmates’ numbers by heart or pay attention because your teacher said you couldn’t always bring a calculator.
A cap driver had to know where they were going and know every street without the use of a GPS. It becomes a form of mental exercise for the huge hippocampus region.
Hippocampus is the memory center of the brain but also AIDS in learning and emotional processing.
In order to investigate the hippocampus, author of 2011 authored an essay titled;
“Cache Cab: Taxi Drivers’ Brains Grow to Navigate London Streets,”
—-BY FERRIS JABR—-
In her earliest studies, Maguire discovered that London taxi drivers had more gray matter in posterior hippocampi than people who were similar in age, education and intelligence, but who did not drive taxis. In other words, taxi driver had plumber memory center than their peers. It seemed that longer someone had been driving a taxi, the larger his hippocampus, as though the brain expanded to accommodate the cognitive demand of navigating London’s streets. But it was also possible that the knowledge selected for people whose memory center were larger than average in the first place.
According to an analysis of Ferris Jabr’s research, our hippocampus grows larger the more we use our minds to memorize information.
“The less you use that mind of yours, the less you use the systems that are responsible for complicated things like episodic memories, or cognitive flexibility, the more likely it is to develop dementia”
—–Oliver Hardt, Mcgill University, Montreal—–
However, research from 2021 revealed that excessive smartphone use shrinks the hippocampus, especially in young, developing brains, which impairs cognitive function, causes difficulties in regulating emotions and thoughts, and alters the volume of grey matter in the brain. As a result, our reliance on technology has made us less able to remember things.
For instance, we routinely use the ChatGPT app when our teacher assigns us an assignment on any subject. ChatGPT provides us with all the information we need to complete the assignment without requiring us to do any research on the subject; it’s like having a spoon fed to us, making our minds less functional.
Another journal article on the subject was published in 2023;
“Neuroimaging the effect of smartphone (over_) use on brain function and structure _ a review on the current state of MRI based finding and a road map for future result.”
The meta study of MRI scans based of chronic smartphone users founded that they have lower grey matter volumes in specific region of the brain this include the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), orbito frontal cortex (OFC), Fusiform gyrus, and para-hippocampus region while the research is still in its early stages.
Less Grey matter usually means a higher risk of depression, schizophrenia, and dementia but remember these are chronic smartphone uses.
“Once you stop using your memory, it will get worse, which makes you use your devices even more”
—–Oliver Hardt, Mcgill University, Montreal—–
3 strategies to reduce hippocampus shrinkage
Several strategies to lessen hippocampal shrinkage include:
- Trying to remember directions whenever possible.
- Using your memory rather than a phone when practical.
- Regular exercise has also shown to increase grey matter in increase memory.
Why multitasking is bad for you
Interestingly, it’s a fallacy that people can multitask. We are hardwired to be Mono taskers, according to neuroscience. According to one study, only 2.5 percent of adults can multitask well. And it is just an illusion when the rest of us try to accomplish two complex tasks at the same time.
This is covered in Catherine Price’s book, “How to Break Up with Your Phone.”
She especially concerned about the risks associated with continuous partial attention, such as checking your phone during a conversation or browsing social media while watching TV. In fact, trying to multitask constantly can actually make it harder for you to think deeply and complexly. It may incite a false sense of urgency that hinders the brain’s capacity to store knowledge for later use, making it more difficult to build up memories.
For instance, when I’m studying for an exam and my phone is close by, I often check it for notifications, which disrupts my study sessions and makes it more difficult to return to the original topic.
2. Addiction
Although this negative effect of being addicted to smartphone is well recognized, did you know that the true dread of being separated from one’s phone is called homophobia?
Dr. Larry Rosson, the author of “The Distracted Mind,” conducted a study on heavy smartphone users that showed what happened when the device was out of reach. Participants were strapped to heat monitors and sweat bands while reading a passage; as a result, they could hear the text notification flooding in their phones. This led to a spike in anxiety and a decrease in reading comprehension, and as more people use smartphones, the average amount of time spent on them increased by 23% between 2019 and 2023, from two hours and 56 minutes to three hours and 46 minutes.
The average users now check their phone 96 times per day.
Studies published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging confirm that excessive smartphone use behaves much like addiction, weakening the brain networks that regulate basic functions like attention and stopping use. This results in withdrawal symptoms and use of the device despite knowledge of its harmful effects.
We are ignoring a quiet epidemic that will have a significant influence on the 6.84 billion users globally, to different degrees. When you consider the number of growing brains utilizing these devices, you can only image the consequences.
Even the people who created smartphones are beginning to wonder what kind of monster they have unleashed as annual smartphone use rises.
Tony Fidel who worked on the original iPhone team says;
“I wake up in cold sweats every so often thinking, what did we bring to the world?” He says. “Did we really bring a nuclear bomb with information that can-like we see with fake news- blow up people’s brains and reprogram them? Or did we bring light to people who never had information, who can now be empowered?
When discussing the addiction to smartphones Not only are adults using smartphones more regularly, but children are also using them more often.
Sadly, a sizable portion of today’s youth suffer from smartphone addiction. As stated in a Commonsense Media report:
- 54% of kids between the ages of 8 and 12 possess a smartphone.
- 84% of youngsters between the ages of 13 and 18 have a smartphone.
- Children between the ages of 8 and 12 use screens for four to six hours every day on average.
- Teens between the ages of 13 and 18 use screens for seven to nine hours every day on average.
Few reasons why people become addicted to their smartphones?
- Social media: social pressure, the need for approval, and FOMO (fear of missing out).
- Gaming: Games designed to enthrall players that are both addictive and captivating.
- Entertainment: Abundant availability of music, videos, and streaming services.
- Convenience: Smartphones offer constant connectivity and a sense of security.
We run the risk of producing a generation of kids whose cognitive development is hindered by their continual exposure to screens if we can’t break the spell of our addiction to smartphones. We will suffer from a fate worse than addiction if we keep giving in to the seduction of our gadgets: a life of limited mental capacity that will leave us unhappy and unproductive. The results are disastrous: a society dependent on quick cuts, devoid of critical thought, and unable of coming up with original solutions to issues. It’s time to take charge, establish limits, and free our thoughts from the smartphone’s hold.
3. Cognitive function
According to a recent survey published in 2022, using electronic gadgets for reading and learning has increased. Despite the fact that electronic devices have greatly benefited humanity, they can lead to poor reading comprehension and headaches and eyestrain. Basic research has found a connection between cognitive performance and the visual surroundings. Reading from an electronic device may cause comprehension to diminish because it strains focus or activates distinct sensory processing pathways that may be linked to physiological states, such as levels of brain and bodily activity. The visual context of a text can influences reading comprehension even when the text’s substance remains the same. Visual input may also have an impact on physiological state and brain state since vision dominates other senses when it comes to cross-modality perception or sensory integration. Therefore, it is likely that physiological alterations and brain activity operate as mediating factors in the association between cognitive performance and the visual environment.
Our smartphone enables and encourage constant connection to information, entertainment and each other. They put the world at our fingertips, and rarely leave our sides. Although these devices have immense potential to improve welfare, their persistent presence may come at a cognitive cost. In this research we test the “brain drain” hypothesis that the mere presence of one’s own smartphone may occupy limited-capacity cognitive resources thereby leaving fewer resources available for tasks and undercutting cognitive performance. Results from two experiments indicates that even when people are successful at maintaining sustained attention as when avoiding the temptation to check their phone—-the mere presence of these devices reduces available cognitive capacity. Moreover, these cognitive costs are highest for those highest in smartphone dependence. We conclude by discussing the practical implications of this smartphone-induced brain drain for consumer decision-making and consumer welfare.
—-The Analysis and Experiments by University of Chicago—-
“(The) researchers asked participants to either put their phones next to them so they were visible (like on a desk), nearby and out of sight (like in a bag or pocket), or in another room.
Participants then completed a series of tasks to test their abilities to process and remember information, their problem solving and their focus. They were found to perform far better when their phones were in another room instead of nearby____whether visible, powered on or not. That held true even though most of the participants claimed not to consciously thinking about their devices.”
—-Experiment by University of Chicago—–
I’ll analyze the findings from Chicago University and provide you with a straightforward example so you can grasp it;
For instance, when your phone is close by, you have to fight for mental space and make a special effort to resist the want to use it. This undermines your ability to concentrate on other tasks since our minds can only handle so much information before we have to prioritize what has to be our primary attention.
4. Stress
“Smartphones are changing our biology in addition to our behavior. Our brains are being rewired, our sleep habits are being disturbed, and our bodies are responding to stress differently as a result of the never-ending stream of information, the continual assault of notifications, and our perpetual connectivity. The consequences to health are severe: elevated levels of anxiety, depression, obesity, and even cognitive deterioration.
Robert Lusting, an endocrinologist, cautions that;
“Smartphone phone notifications have turned us all into Pavlov’s dogs, training our brains to be in a constant state of fear and stress.”
Let’s now examine how this occurs.
- Neurons in the prefrontal cortex are altered after exposure to a flood of neurotransmitters. One common trigger of neurotransmitters to flood the brain is the anticipation of rewards, like UI on Instagram.
- This can cause our prefrontal cortex- the brain’s decision- making hub and emotional control center to go completely haywire and shut down.
- When the prefrontal cortex shut down, the amygdala, responsible for emotional regulation, takes over, inducing stress and panic.
Although smartphones are already a necessary part of our lives, using them constantly can actually make you feel more stressed. Here’s how to do it:
Numerous Interruptions: Whether it’s to check messages, social media, or other notifications, we unlock our phones between 100 and 150 times a day. Every connection triggers the sympathetic nervous system, which raises heart rate, tense muscles, and releases adrenaline.
Chronic Connectivity: Anxiety might arise from having to reply to messages, emails, and notifications right away. Stress levels rise because we feel obligated to keep in touch.
Sleep Interruption: Using smartphones excessively, particularly right before bed, lowers the quality of sleep. Insufficient sleep intensifies stress and negatively affects general health.
Sleep specialists caution that even when you turn off your mobile device, the light it emits may still be disrupting your sleep cycle.
We run the risk of compromising our health and well-being if we don’t exercise self control when using our smartphones. The time for action is now, the stakes are high, and the consequences are terrible.
Summary
Following a thorough discussion on smartphones, I was left wondering: Have you ever considered the ratio of time spent with your parents, siblings, hobbies and friends versus time spent on your phone?
I believe that going days or even weeks without using a phone helps you focus more on the other people in your life.
The smartphone is not a bad thing it is like a tool, and it’s up to us to use them wisely to avoid negative effects on our brains.
I have come to the conclusion that, despite the warning signs raised by various psychiatrists, authors, and researchers against smartphones, I must use them responsibly. However, the harsh reality is that, as much as I try, none of us can resist the allure of our phones because they take up so much space in our lives and we become increasingly dependent on them.
We use our phones during conversations, to browse social media while watching TV, to study for exams, to use different apps instead of our own brains, to complete small-scale tasks on our phones, and more. We can’t even imagine our lives without our phones. All of these uses of smartphones make us lazy, stupid, and negatively impact our mental health, making it difficult for us to retain information for extended periods of time.
Now is the moment to reduce all of the negative effects of smartphones, including decreased gray matter, anxiety, stress, and poorer memory and focus. Try to use your phone within reasonable bounds; frequent exercise will improve the amount of grey matter in a particular area of your brain; avoid excessive social media browsing; avoid multitasking; and pick to read print media rather than using your phone.
