Featured, Featured Lifestyle, News, Tech August 25, 2016 by Lisa Neff
"A 'ding' for a text.
"A 'ping' for a Facebook post.
"A 40-second blast from 'Can’t Stop the Feeling!' for a call.
"A growing body of research suggests notifications from smartphones can cause distraction, inattention and even anxiety.
"Kostadin
Kushlev at the University of Virginia and Jason Proulx and Elizabeth
Dunn at the University of British Columbia looked into the effects of
the habitual use of digital devices.
"Polls show
smartphone owners spend about two hours per day using their devices,
which have dramatically changed how people receive and share
information.
"Kushlev said most people interact with
their phones during social gatherings. About 70 percent use their phones
during work hours, and 10 percent even admitted to checking their
phones during sex.
"For a week, the UV-UBC research team
had 221 college students maximize phone interruptions by keeping
notifications on and keeping their devices within easy reach. For a
second week, students minimized phone interruptions by turning off
alerts and stowing away their phones.
"During the week
of more intense phone interruptions, students reported higher levels of
inattention and hyperactivity — distraction, difficulty focusing,
fidgeting, boredom and difficulty tackling quiet tasks and activities.
"The
findings, Kushlev said, suggest constant digital stimulation 'may be
contributing to an increasingly problematic deficit of attention in
modern society.'
"The researcher, who presented the
study at a conference in California in May, emphasized this problem has a
simple solution: The phones can be silenced or turned off."
welcome to the dumbing down of America, a fitting end of LBJ's Great society
ReplyDeleteWhat? I wasn't paying attention.
ReplyDelete