A decade ago, smart devices promised to change the way we think and interact, and they have – but not by making us smarter. Eric Andrew-Gee explores the growing body of scientific evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds
Your smartphone is making you stupid, antisocial and unhealthy. So why can’t you put it down?
A decade ago, smart devices promised to change the way we think and interact, and they have – but not by making us smarter. Eric Andrew-Gee explores the growing body of scientific evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds
'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia
The Google, Apple and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive are disconnecting themselves from the internet. Paul Lewis reports on the Silicon Valley refuseniks who worry the race for human attention has created a world of perpetual distraction that could ultimately end in disaster
Forget Smartphone Addiction. Here’s What Experts Are Really Worried About
Our phones are not the problem when it comes to gadget addiction. It's this.
Smartphones and Cognition: A Review of Research Exploring the Links between Mobile Technology Habits and Cognitive Functioning
While smartphones and related mobile technologies are recognized as flexible and powerful tools that, when used prudently, can augment human cognition, there is also a growing perception that habitual involvement with these devices may have a negative and lasting impact on users’ ability to think, remember, pay attention, and regulate emotion. The present review considers an intensifying, though still limited, area of research exploring the potential cognitive impacts of smartphone-related habits, and seeks to determine in which domains of functioning there is accruing evidence of a significant relationship between smartphone technology and cognitive performance, and in which domains the scientific literature is not yet mature enough to endorse any firm conclusions. We focus our review primarily on three facets of cognition that are clearly implicated in public discourse regarding the impacts of mobile technology – attention, memory, and delay of gratification – and then consider evidence regarding the broader relationships between smartphone habits and everyday cognitive functioning. Along the way, we highlight compelling findings, discuss limitations with respect to empirical methodology and interpretation, and offer suggestions for how the field might progress toward a more coherent and robust area of scientific inquiry.
The lost art of concentration: being distracted in a digital world
We check our phones every 12 minutes, often just after waking up. Always-on behaviour is harmful to long-term mental health, and we need to learn to the hit the pause button
‘My social life completely plummeted’: gen Z is fighting back against big tech
From apps that block distractions to stripped-down phones, young people are finding ways to unplug from platforms they say profit from their attention
How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Former Insider
Where does technology exploit our minds’ weaknesses?
Why a leading professor of new media just banned technology use in class
Anyone distracted in class doesn’t just lose out on the content of the discussion but creates a sense of permission that opting out is OK, and, worse, a haze of second-hand distraction for peers.
This App Warns You if Someone Is Wearing Smart Glasses Nearby
The creator of Nearby Glasses made the app after reading 404 Media's coverage of how people are using Meta's Ray-Bans smartglasses to film people without their knowledge or consent. “I consider it to be a tiny part of resistance against surveillance tech.”
the chronically online will become a new underclass
Yes, Smartphones Are Destroying a Generation, But Not of Kids - JSTOR Daily
Why parents need to embrace our role as digital mentors: offering kids and teens ongoing support and guidance in how to use the internet appropriately.
Digital Echoes and Unquiet Minds - Christopher Butler
There's a psychological burden of digital life even heavier than distraction.
We Are Hopelessly Hooked
We check our phones 221 times a day—an average of every 4.3 minutes—according to a UK study. This number actually may be too low, since people tend to underestimate their own mobile usage. In a 2015 Gallup survey, 61 percent of people said they checked their phones less frequently than others they knew. Our transformation into device people has happened with unprecedented suddenness.
Decentralizing My Smartphone With Single Purpose Devices
Lately, I’ve become nostalgic for the days before smartphones, when the internet was a place we went to deliberately, and not a place that lived on all of ou...
Are Cell Phones Really Destroying Kids’ Mental Health?
Jonathan Haidt once heralded an “ultrasocial” world. Now he’s one of social media’s most prominent critics.
The digital exiles: Why people are abandoning their smartphones - Coda Story
A growing movement of “former screenagers” is calling for a screen-free, surveillance-free life, for a chance to build a future beyond tech capture
