Could Smartphones Lower Intelligence?

Study suggests that devices might promote lazy thinking and less brain use.

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Health

2015-03-07

Being too reliant on a smartphone could make lazy thinkers even less inclined to use their brain, a new study suggests.

"They may look up information that they actually know or could easily learn, but are unwilling to make the effort to actually think about it," study co-lead author Gordon Pennycook, a doctoral candidate in the psychology department at the University of Waterloo in Canada, said in a university news release.

"Our research provides support for an association between heavy smartphone use and lowered intelligence," Pennycook said. "Whether smartphones actually decrease intelligence is still an open question that requires future research."

The researchers assessed the thinking styles and smartphone use of 660 people to compare analytical and intuitive thinkers. Intuitive thinkers tend to use gut feelings and instinct when making decisions, while analytical thinkers give much more thought to solve problems.

The researchers found that that intuitive thinkers, but not analytical thinkers, frequently used their smartphone's search engine rather than their own brains.

This means that smartphones enable intuitive thinkers to be even lazier thinkers than normal, according to the investigators.

The study was published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

"Decades of research has revealed that humans are eager to avoid expending effort when problem-solving and it seems likely that people will increasingly use their smartphones as an extended mind," co-lead author and postdoctoral researcher Nathaniel Barr said in the news release.

Being too lazy to use your mind to problem-solve could have serious consequences for your brain as you age, the researchers suggested.

"Our reliance on smartphones and other devices will likely only continue to rise," Barr said.

He stressed it's crucial to study how "smartphones affect human psychology before these technologies are so fully ingrained that it's hard to recall what life was like without them. We may already be at that point."

Source: HealthDay News