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Shocking Study Shows Why Technology Is Not Really Making Us Smarter

Anthony Wing Kosner
This article is more than 7 years old.

According to Google, most Android users check their phones 150 times a day. Wearable technologies like smart watches and Google Glass may eventually make us check our phones less often, but will almost certainly drive up the average user's digital interruptions each day. Early users of Android Wear who were given Samsung Gear Live or LG G Watches at Google I/O report their wrists "constantly buzzing." Digital technology has certainly increased the quantity of our mental stimulation, but what about the quality?

A well-publicized study led by Timothy Wilson, a professor of psychology at University of Virginia, reached a "shocking" conclusion. People have become so uncomfortable being alone with their own thoughts that many would prefer giving themselves small electric shocks to being "bored." In the study Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind, published in Science today, researcher confront contemporary American's discomfort with their own minds. "We have this big brain full of pleasant memories, and we’re able to tell ourselves stories and make up fantasies," Wilson tells the Washington Post. "But despite that, we kept finding that people didn’t like it much and found it hard.” Not surprisingly, men found this alone time more difficult than women. Only 25% of the women in the final experiment of the study gave themselves shocks during a 15-minute period versus 66% of the men. One outlier male (whose data was removed from the final results) gave himself an astounding 190 shocks during that time!

The study was designed to test people's ability to daydream, to sustain unstructured mental activity. The people selected for the survey varied in age and use of electronics, so smartphone use is not directly implicated in the results, but the underlying causes of this unsettledness are the same. “We wouldn’t crave these things if we weren’t in need of distractions," Wilson says. "But having so many available keeps us from learning how to disengage.” Although people who knew how to meditate performed better on the test, using social media less did not correlate with better daydreaming.



Interestingly, a new app called Moment "automatically tracks how much you use your phone each day," so you can set limits and restore "balance in your life." Developer Kevin Holesh explains, "I wrote Moment for myself. I find myself ignoring my family and friends in favor of my iPhone." He is not a Luddite and claims, "My iPhone has improved my life in a number of ways and I carry it around with me everywhere I go. Sometimes I use it too much, and my eyes and mind start to go numb. I pull out my iPhone to combat boredom. Instead, I could be taking a deep breath and looking at the world around me." Sounds like the people in Wilson's study could use Holesh's app!





