There is a growing body of evidence that having the wealth of human knowledge at your fingertips is as likely, if not more so, to make you dumber. New research also suggests that notifications cause cognitive disruption.
“Our findings suggest that notifications can disrupt cognitive processing for about seven seconds and that this disruption reflects multiple mechanisms, including perceptual salience, learned conditioning through repeated exposure, and their potential social relevance,” Fournier told PsyPost.
“Importantly, beyond total screen time, we found that the number of notifications received and the frequency of smartphone checks were associated with stronger disruption effects. This suggests that fragmented smartphone use, not just overall usage time, may play an important role in how digital technology affects our attention.”
“Although the delays we observed may seem small in isolation, their importance comes from how frequently notifications occur in everyday life. Even short disruptions, when repeated dozens or hundreds of times per day, may meaningfully affect concentration and productivity. The practical significance therefore lies more in their cumulative impact.”
No one is suggesting that smartphone or social media use, in particular, should lead to bans of any sort. “The goal of this research is to encourage more mindful and adaptive technology habits rather than complete avoidance.”
Understanding potential problems and taking conscious responsibility for identified risks is part of everyday life, with just about everything in it. Smartphones are just tools like any other. To use them to your best advantage, you need to know how you and they work together to produce the best outcomes.
Blunt objects, for example, result in more harm than firearms, but guns get a bad rap thanks to the ramblings of aspiring despots who know they need all the guns before they can use the government to impose more radical controls on our lives.
Smartphones are certainly going to be a part of that. From human tracking to COVID passporting to social credit scores, the progressive elites already have their plans. Smartphones just make it easier if they can get us over the hump.
One that could turn that ubiquitous distraction into a ball and chain. A required pocket-sized propaganda device that already serves as a mass surveillance tool.
But don’t let that distract you. I’m not saying we need to lose them either. Quite the opposite.
We have a responsibility to ensure the government doesn’t or can’t use it that way, but I do wonder if too many people are too distracted (or cognitively impaired) by the shiny pinging thing to realize that.
