Last evening, I was in a common room where a lot of young and middle aged people were taking a dinner break. Rather than chatting, I was astonished to observe that most were on their phones--the room was almost silent.
I believed there was a loose
correlation between lousy spelling and language mechanics brought on by the
laxities of texting, but an article in The
Atlantic Monthly tells a much different, deeper and scarier story. Here’s a
quote from it:"A smart phone can tax its user’s cognition simply by sitting next to them on a table, or being anywhere in the same room with them, suggests a study published recently in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. It finds that a smart phone can demand its user’s attention even when the person isn’t using it or consciously thinking about it. Even if a phone’s out of sight in a bag, even if it’s set to silent, even if it’s powered off, its mere presence will reduce someone’s working memory and problem-solving skills.
These effects are strongest for people who depend on their smart phones, such as those who affirm a statement like, “I would have trouble getting through a normal day without my cell phone.”
But few people also know they’re paying this cognitive smart phone tax as it plays out. Few participants in the study reported feeling distracted by their phone during the exam, even if the data suggested their attention was not at full capacity."
Whoa! We better all get off our phones and have a conversation while we still can!
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