The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
New hot take: I'm addicted to my laptop. The phone barely registers in terms of interest because I work on my laptop anyway, which is less cumbersome to navigate.<p>Notwithstanding the need to separate work from leisure life, much of leisure is just attached to this device. Even the less consumptive activities, like writing or playing music, benefit from it. And anything to do with innovation or research is absolutely tied to it. This has been amplified somewhat owing to the pandemic, keeping me from activities out-in-the-world, but even before it all happened I merely had the gym and the odd outing to the coffee shop on the regular, and weekly/bi-weekly outings with friends.<p>It's a mechanical issue. By which I mean, I enjoy research at leisure and relatively solitary activities, but at the same time I want to pull away from being in front of a screen; it hasn't to do with consumption versus creativity or challenge. I try to remedy this with scheduled walks, and enough social time. Historically I imagine a person like myself would just be stuck in front of books instead, which I do also, but so much info can be gleaned from the web particularly research papers.<p>EDIT: this concerns me more-so now as we'll be trying for a kid, and I'd like to lead by example.<p>What I'd like to see in the future is AR tech that rewards mobility and in-person interaction, creating collaborative spaces anywhere. That may seem like more of the same problem, but the marriage with technology will only deepen, so it's up to us to set the terms.