A recent study showed that test subjects’ cognitive functions became impaired when they were separated from their phones. And no, not just because they were unable to Google the solutions to their test puzzles.
Published online in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, the study had test subjects complete a word puzzle while attached to a blood pressure monitor. Then, researchers told subjects that their phones were causing interference with the instruments and must be placed across the room during the next puzzle.
But just taking their phones away wasn’t enough for the University of Missouri researchers. No, they tortured their subjects by calling the phones while their lab humans completed—or tried to complete—their tasks and not allowing them to answer. As a result, subjects’ blood pressure went up, puzzle performance decreased, and self-reported feelings of anxiety and detachment from an “extended self” increased.
Russell Clayton, a doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and lead author of the study, said in an MU news release, “Our findings suggest that iPhone separation can negatively impact performance on mental tasks. Additionally, the results from our study suggest that iPhones are capable of becoming an extension of our selves such that when separated, we experience a lessening of ‘self’ and a negative physiological state.”
This, of course, is probably just a much milder version of the natural mental and physiological reaction when you do have your phone, but it just won’t do what you want:
(via Forbes)
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