There have already been studies showing how distracted your trusty cellphone can make you and how reliant we are on them to remember phone numbers, directions and myriad other details we used to use our brain to do.
However, a new study shows your smartphone can make you dumber even when it’s not turned on.
Researchers with the University of Chicago just published a study that showed having your phone next to you when you’re doing something else can lead to cellphone “brain drain.”
The researchers noted just having your phone near you takes up “limited-capacity cognitive resources for purposes of attentional control.”
“Because the same finite pool of attentional resources supports both attentional control and other cognitive processes, resources recruited to inhibit automatic attention to one’s phone are made unavailable for other tasks, and performance on these tasks will suffer.”
In case your phone is next to you, you might need a translation: Your phone can distract you even if you’re not swiping and scrolling.
“First, smartphones may redirect the orientation of conscious attention away from the focal task and toward thoughts or behaviors associated with one’s phone.”
So even if you’re not on your phone, you’re thinking about being on your phone.
The researchers noted the only way subjects were able to focus properly on the task at hand was if their phones were silent and in another room. They noted audible notifications when you can’t reach your device have been proven to raise anxiety levels.
“Our data suggest at least one simple solution: separation,” they concluded.