Photo: Samuel Cruz/Unsplash.
New research shows that constantly breaking your focus is bad for brain health.
In one of my routine harangues, I like to say that “notifications” are part of a tech conspiracy to ensure that we are never allowed to finish a thought. I can’t tell you how much I hate notifications. I try to block them on every feature of my phone.
To back me up, there is lots of research indicating that constant phone checking undermines cognitive health. It is even associated with dementia. When you yourself are instigating the constant checking, not just a push notification, you really better do something.
The Washington Post invented a composite figure from the new data — “Amy” — to illustrate just what is going on with your brain.
Amaya Verde and Luis Melgar report, “For many of us, checking our phones has probably become an unconscious reflex, similar to breathing or blinking. And like Amy, a composite character who illustrates usual patterns of phone usage, we are interacting with our phones a high number of times.
“Glancing at your phone can begin to compromise your cognitive skills once it passes a certain threshold. Studies from Nottingham Trent University in the U.K. and Keimyung University in South Korea found that checking your phone about 110 times a day may signal high risk or problematic use.
“Over eight years of research involving teenagers and millennials, Larry Rosen, a professor emeritus of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, observed that participants checked or unlocked their smartphones between 50 and more than 100 times per day, on average every 10 to 20 minutes while awake. …
” ‘The phones and digital media are reinforcing for our brains, activating the same reward pathway as drugs and alcohol. The phones create a compulsive habit loop where we check without thinking and experience withdrawal when we don’t check or don’t have access to our phone,’ said Anna Lembke, a professor of psychiatry and addiction medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine.
“According to a survey conducted by YouGov in May on phone use, when Americans were asked where they place their devices before going to sleep, 8 out of 10 said they keep them in their bedrooms, most often next to their beds. …
People underestimate how often they check their phones.
“When asked in the same survey how many times they pick up their devices each day, most respondents believed they did so about 10 times. A study by the Singapore Management University found that frequent interruptions to check our devices lead to more attention and memory lapses. Unlike total screen time, the frequency of smartphone checks is a much stronger predictor of daily cognitive failures. …
“The habit is widespread. YouGov found that more than half of Americans check their phones multiple times during social activities such as eating with others or meeting friends.
“At work, during a 30-minute meeting, 1 in 4 people admitted to checking their phone at least once. After each workplace interruption, it can take more than 25 minutes to regain focus, said Gloria Mark, a researcher at the University of California at Irvine.
“Most people receive push notifications throughout the day, such as messages, emails and alerts, many of which originate from social media platforms. ‘Our constant need for connection increases the brain’s biochemistry, particularly anxiety-producing chemicals such as cortisol, which nags at us to “check in” upward of 100 times a day,’ Rosen explained. … ‘Whatever generational differences that were studied when the smartphone and social media arrived are now basically minimal.’ …
“German researchers from Heidelberg University found that after just 72 hours without smartphone use, brain activity began to mirror patterns typically seen in substance withdrawal. The investigation suggests that short breaks from smartphone use can help reduce problematic habits by reorganizing our reward circuits, making them more flexible.
“Experts offered simple ways to break unhelpful device habits. ‘Make the phone less reinforcing by turning off notifications, deleting all but the most necessary apps, going grayscale and powering the phone off between use. I also recommend leaving the phone behind on occasion, just to remind ourselves we can still navigate the world without our phones,’ Lembke said.”
More at the Post, here.
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