A study by the University of Missouri demonstrated that separating people from their iPhones not only causes anxiety, but also reduces cognitive performance.
The study hooked up participants to a wireless blood pressure monitor and then asked them to solve word-search puzzles. Once base readings of blood pressure and puzzle-solving performance had been measured, the researchers claimed that the participant’s iPhones were causing Bluetooth interference with the wireless monitor, and the phones needed to be moved further away within the room. New blood pressure and puzzle-solving readings were then obtained to measure the effect of being separated from their phones …
Participants were also asked to rate how pleasant or unpleasant they felt in both phases of the test.
The results showed an increase in blood pressure, indicative of stress or anxiety; poorer performance at solving the puzzles; and participants rating their feelings more toward the unpleasant end of the scale.
These findings suggest that iPhone users should avoid parting with their phones during daily situations that involve a great deal of attention, such as taking tests, sitting in conferences or meetings, or completing important work assignments, as it could result in poorer cognitive performance on those tasks.
Sounds to me like a solid academic argument for suggesting you need to keep your iPhone on you when sitting exams …
A full copy of the paper The Extended iSelf: The Impact of iPhone Separation on Cognition, Emotion, and Physiology is available for free viewing in the Wiley Online Library.
You can of course measure your own blood pressure on your iPhone using a Bluetooth cuff which feeds data to your iPhone (or to someone else’s, if you want to measure your separation anxiety), with the QardioArm one of the latest devices.
Via Gizmodo
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Makes us dumber? That’s ok, iPhones owners are usually beter educated:
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/06/06/iphone_owners_high_income_education/
I was going to reply to your comment by saying it’s a bit of a general comment saying that iPhone owners are usually better educated, but when I saw your spelling of “better” I thought I wouldn’t need to.
That is freaking hilarious!
:) just being a jokey grammar Nazi – but I see your point :)
Unfortunately, I see a lot of Apple users trying to use this as some sort of indicator that Apple is somehow better.
I’ve had an iPhone since the first model and I’ve grown very accustomed to having the Internet at my fingertips at all times. If I want to know something I can look it up, if I hear a song that rings a bell, Shazam will give me the title and artist and even the opportunity to purchase it. This close, constant connection to a truly vast amount of knowledge is frankly addictive. On the very rare occasions when I don’t have my iPhone with me, I feel as if part of my brain is missing.
I guess the real question should be: Is the decrease in cognitive function caused by separation anxiety, or does our IQ really drop? I suspect the former.
I agree. It has to be due to the anxiety. Heck, even when one of my family members takes my iPhone, I feel a tinge of anxiety. It is odd, and Pavlovian at the same time.
I guess to each his own. If I’m having a discussion and a question arises I don’t always take out my phone to look it up. Sometimes I’m more ‘comforted’ by having a good discussion, even if we don’t have the exact answers.
But yes, having the _ability_ to look everything up is sure great. If someone would tell me 10 years ago we could have a little device in our pocket with close up satellite images of where we are at that moment I may very well have laughed about that (and wishing for it without understanding how to create something like that)
I dont know how old are you but I am 22 and there is never anything that made me laugh about the future. Will I be amazed? Definetly. But I wont ever laugh at an idea about the future.
I think you would get the same results if you took away say a person’s shoe, an article of clothing, or anything else previously “attached” to the person. I think this study is kind of stating the obvious, nothing really surprising here.
Uhm, what about non iOS smartphones? Moving away from platforms wars, a few weeks ago I was without a phone for about an hour when switching from an LG G3 to a Note 4 (both great devices BTW). Just in that period, whilst I did not miss contact or on demand information, what I did feel was vulnerable!
Silly really, I was in a safe town centre during daylight hours surrounded by people. There was almost nothing that could happen to me that would require my phone (and if it did, other people would call the emergency services), yet I did feel isolated and a little bit frightened.
Our connected devices have become a crutch. I’m wondering whether relying on a device for information we should learn by heart during education (birth date of presidents, date of end of WW2, 45 x 2 = 90 etc) is a good thing or not for our minds? The safety features are superb, ability to call for help, be tracked if injured etc are priceless, so they cannot be discounted.
BTW, my backup phone is an iPhone 1/2G that I didn’t have with me at the time above, but that I still consider the nicest looking and feeling iPhone to date. I’ll switch back to iOS when Apple make iOS more like Android, whose UX and notifications is/are better in my view.
Typing this on a MacBook Pro 15″ Retina. Superb workhorse. :)
I’m sure it would be the same, regardless of platform. iPhone just made for the better headline for the study …
I would think it’s the same for anyone addicted to the feeling of being connected to the rest of the world regardless of brand. Without our electronic drug of choice keeping us in contact with our family, friends and acquaintances, horizons contract and we find ourselves surrounded by strangers only our biological voice can reach. Having your world unexpectedly shrink to such a degree can be a disconcerting experience.
As for this connectivity becoming a crutch, I’m not so sure. I’ve heard it said that when you reach a certain age (mid 40s) your brain says “hard drive full”. I like to think of it as offloading seldom used data in favor of important memories and exciting new things I can learn. ;-)
Love it. I hit 40 and my eye dr. said “bifocals”. 42 now and still not there, but it’s coming. Hard drive full. Love it. I have to double the storage on my iTunes library drive every 2 years, so would make sense. ;)
True. That hard drive full issue could be why i am having so much trouble relearning how to read sheet music to pay the keyboards. I can remember old tunes but learning new anything is hard.
My hard drive was full a while ago, now I’m just worried about bad blocks!
Maybe it has more to do with the monetary value of your phone and that it’s being taken away from the security of your person. They should figure out a way to do this experiment and take people’s wedding rings away from them, or something else non-essential but very valuable. Taking away shoes, in my mind, wouldn’t demonstrate the same thing. A) Shoes are often relatively not expensive and B) It’s highly noticeable when your shoes aren’t on any more.
When my girlfriend takes my iPhone my blood pressure rises to stratospheric levels.
…stratospheric levels? What happens when she kisses you¿
he explodes
Anxiety I can understand. Making us dumber is a load of horse sh**.
Wonder what the results would`ve been if this crappy University undertook the survey 5 years ago
Somewhat mentioned in other comments below but, from the brief synopsis of the study, it sounds like there was no group who had other items of value explained to them as non-working and removed. I would think that in addition to not wanting your $200 phone taken away from you, anxiety could also be brewing because you’re worrying about the testers telling you that the phone was causing interference. While this, in theory, shouldn’t be a problem for you–someone is suggesting that your phone has or is a problem. That’s stressful. Do I need to take it to the Apple store? Is that normal? What kind of weird radio waves is this group of scientists’ wireless device putting off?
So, what happens when you separate someone from their Android phone? Constipation? Irritable Bowel Syndrome? Elephantiasis? This article is moronic at best! Studies this limited prove absolutely nothing!
My mother took my iPhone once. ONCE.
What a nonsense! Although I do have my iPhone with me most time, I only use it in the evening watching TV. I do read some blogs some news and weather infos of my weather station. In my car I use it as navi system. I don’t post on social networks, and some times play AngryBird. Check my emails (but most time have already checked them on my MacBook or iMac). If I do send 50 SMS / Month that’s a lot. Call Time is perhaps 1 h / month. If I forget my iPhone I’m not anxious, but happy for not being disturbed. I most times know where I left it. I always know where I have my personal belongings (I never lost my keys or any mobile phone).
Does my iPhone make me dumber? Yes, because I know where I look for something which I should know! Since my first mobile phone I never remembered any phone number because my phone stores them. Having no (iPhone) with me I have to remember them! The same is true for any other infos stored on my phones or computers. It really isn’t enough to know where I have stored or find which information / data. It’s more important to know the correct information / data.
I think it is that loss of information access which makes people anxious because they are dependent on it.
The real problem is that most of the informations we’re looking up on the internet is mostly irrelevant, but we think this it’s the most important. Check Twitter or Facebook. I would say 90% of informations posted there there are useless!
Only 90%? In my opinion it’s a completely useless medium. Theres nothing social about it. People simply use it to hang out their laundry, whether it’s clean or not doesn’t matter. “Look! My new car!” “I’m having this and this for dinner [insert total crap picture, low light, noise, poor composition]”
Yet another study to belabor the obvious. Next up: A study of people who own Android phones. Or maybe Samsung, LG, Microsoft/Nokia, HTC and all the rest could commission publicity-seeking studies. Then we probably have a study that using Google makes us dumber, paid for by Microsoft, and a study that Bing makes us dumber and poorer, paid by Google, of course. O, for the life of the academic, doing lots of studies.
My take is that iPhone also functions as a personal mascot.