Are Smartphones Making Us Dumb? Part 2

In part 1 of this 2-part newsletter, I introduced some of the issues we are seeing due to the introduction of the smartphone. Now I will discuss the apps and why they might be the essence of the issue…

I don’t think it is the smartphone itself that has got us all hooked on this new technology. There were other handheld devices with similar capabilities before the smartphone (e.g., the Blackberry). The ingenious move by Apple that cemented the iPhone’s lead in this market was the App Store. The ability to install third-party apps onto the phones created a feeding frenzy. According to Business of Apps, there are 1.85 million apps available on the iOS App store and 2.56 million on the Google play store. And they are all competing for your business and your attention. ?

The use of ‘apps’ on the smartphone has a dramatic impact. A key feature of applications on your phone is that they are often designed to be addictive. The more often you use an app, the more money the tech companies make! Have you ever tried to turn off the notifications? It is possible but often difficult. Why? Because those buzzes and peeps that happen intermittently are a great way to get your attention. In fact, it’s been suggested that some of the social media apps schedule notifications such as “likes” in a way to increase or retain users on their sites. They do this using very sophisticated modeling techniques and artificial intelligence. They are designed to get you hooked.

They are designed to get you addicted because making money by selling an app is a tough business. Most apps are free or very inexpensive. For a company or developer to make money they need huge numbers of downloads. They need their app to go viral. And then to sell advertising on the app they need your attention. You have probably heard the quote “If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product.” The source of the quote is controversial so I’m not sure who to cite, but the sentiment is perfect. If you don’t pay for the app, the company needs you to be looking at the app so they can sell your attention to advertisers. How do they get your attention? With lots of neat tricks that trigger the primitive parts of our brain. They make us feel like we need to look. It is an incredibly competitive market that is fighting for your attention.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-competition nor am I a technophobe. I love competition. I worked at MIT which is arguably the most competitive University in the world. And I love technology. I can program in multiple different computer languages, I have developed new brain imaging analysis methods, I have led cutting-edge virtual reality research, and I have sat on think tanks for Canon and Fujitsu. As a neuroscientist, competition and drive – and the resulting technological advances – are my bread and butter. And there has been no bigger technological advance than the smartphone. We now have a computer that is far more powerful than anything we could have conceived of 50 years ago that fits in our back pocket. But with most gifts there is often a flip side. What is the opposing side of this miraculous invention? Since the rise of the smartphone, we have seen an increase in mental health issues and a decline in memory, reading ability, general intelligence, attention, and physical health. This miracle of modern technology has had both positive and negative impacts on our society and our brains.

Of course, we haven’t even started talking about gaming, gambling, and pornography available via the smartphone. They are all highly addictive and cause major health and psychological distress to families across the globe. Recently, we saw a man charged with domestic violence when the world saw him abuse his partner on the webcam. This occurred because he was addicted to gaming and was unwilling to stop. I’ve had long discussions with psychologists who treat gaming addiction. They describe situations where teenagers have not left their rooms literally for years. They have not attended school or had anything to do with real friends. They are completely isolated and completely hooked. It has a devastating effect on individuals and families.

Of course, it is not the phone itself that is creating all these negative issues. Just as a gun doesn’t kill people, heroin doesn’t make drug addicts and gambling machines don’t make gambling addicts. It is us, humans, and the way we interact with or use these things that cause the issues. Similarly, it is the way we interact with and use smartphones driven by tech companies wanting to capture our attention that is making us dumb.??

We are conducting an unauthorised and uncontrolled experiment on ourselves and our children. The results so far are much worse than I expected when I first started researching this topic. Unfortunately, our brain is like our muscles and needs to be exercised regularly. If we don’t use it, we will lose it. The smartphone means that we’re no longer using many of the functions of our brain that are important to us as humans. We no longer need to remember, navigate, calculate, discuss, think, or socialise. And these abilities are being compromised.

?Tip: Install a monitoring app on your phone and check out what you actually do every day. The first step to stopping a habit or addiction is to acknowledge the problem and no better way than with clear data.?

Interested in becoming a Brain Healthy School or a Brain Healthy Business? Email me at [email protected] to discuss ways we can help improve learning, innovation, productivity, and mental health. A person’s most important asset is their brain!

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