How Smartphones Shrink Our Brains

this video is brought to you by ground news hi welcome to another episode of Cold Fusion we know for a fact that what all of these systems do every single one is it exploits our own natural tendencies in human beings to get and want feedback and that feedback chemically speaking is the release of dopamine in your brain and so what these feedback loops do and they exist everywhere in Call of Duty in other video games in social networking sites they get you to react and I think that if you get too desensitized and you need

it over and over and over again then you become actually detached from the world in which you live you become callous you become crude and you live in front of your screen so we all know the benefits and usefulness of smartphones they're amazing a little rectangle in your pocket that does everything but that comes with the price there's a growing body of research that indicates that smartphones can actually change the the way our brains work did you know that just the mere presence of your phone in a room can destroy your cognitive functioning even if

it's switched off crazy I know but literal experiments have proved this in this episode we'll take a look at how phones affect our memory stress levels and cognitive function and also here's a question if the collective brains of billions of people on earth have been unknowingly altered worldwide what does this mean for society it's not all bad news though we'll also take a look at how we can help ourselves you are watching cold fusion [Music] TV in 2007 amst the chaos of the financial crisis the first iPhone was launched and we are calling it iPhone

computer giant Apple says it's reinvented the phone marrying a mobile with an iPod giving birth to the iPhone an iPod a cell phone and a portable internet all in a little lightweight package the big attraction here right now is encased in that plastic tube back there surrounded by an admiring crowd it's a Sleek Aluminum and Stainless Steel creation a cell phone doesn't have any buttons just a touchcreen it only had 16 apps and that was it no app store and nothing else it was relatively simple by today's standards suddenly buttons were replaced with a large

responsive touchscreen interface people could Now swipe tap scroll zoom and browse the web more efficiently than they could on a desktop at the time such features were unheard of although it looked interesting very few predicted just how quickly such a small device could envelop our lives with each passing year the phones got faster the features grew and the software exponentially improved apps became useful but then came the algorithms and feeds and before we knew it most of us had entered a 2d virtual reality a completely separate reality and view of the world but through a

screen this was powered by algorithms designed to keep your attention and apps designed to trigger the dopamine responses in your brain it sounds like a sci-fi film when put that way but we all know this story by now it was one of the main themes of the Netflix show the social dilemma a hmark look into how algorithms rule our lives and the people that made those algorithms knew what they were doing in 2008 when the true impact of smartphones was still a mystery UCLA psychiatrist Gary Small began sounding the caution alarm he was saying that

heavy smartphone use could alter brain function by weakening the circuits needed for inperson interaction and reading non-verbal cues remember the iPhone was only 1 year old at this time at the time his claims were called quote Ing and quote provocative by the science Community but it still couldn't be proved fast forward a decade and a half later and smartphones and their cognitive effects are being reexamined but what about the less known stuff what other effects do smartphones have on the Mind although there's still much to learn about the long-term cognitive impact there is some scientific

evidence that should make us pause if you've ever felt that Phantom Buzz or feel anxious when you haven't checked your phone in a while you don't need an expert to tell you that there's something strange at play what exactly are smartphones doing to our minds and personalities let's take a look at the research we're going to cover memory addiction cognitive function and stress let's break them down number one memory back in the day you had to memorize all your friends numbers or actually listen in Math's class because your teachers said that you couldn't carry a

calculator 24/7 cab drivers also back in the day had no GPS they had to know where they were going without stopping to check they had to know all the streets it turns out that exercising that mental muscle of memory has given cab drivers physically larger hippo campire it's the memory center of the brain but also AIDS in learning and emotional processing but now today we heavily rely on our devices as memory aids but new research suggests that maybe this isn't a great sign at 2021 study found that excessive smartphone use can reduce the size of

the hippocampus especially in young develop brains there's been other studies with similar findings but unfortunately there's even more a meta study of MRI scans of chronic smartphone users found that they have lower gray matter volumes in specific regions of the brain this includes the anterior singulate cortex orbitofrontal cortex fusiform gyrus and parahippocampal regions while the research is still in its early stages less gray matter usually means a higher risk of depression schizophrenia and dementia but remember these are chronic smartphone uses but on that note the cost of this might be an enormous increase in dementia

quote the less you use that mind of yours the less you use the systems that are responsible for complicated things like episodic memories or cognitive flexibility the more likely it is to develop Dimension once you stop using your memory it will get worse which will make you use your devices more according to Professor Oliver harded even an overreliance on GPS's could reduce the density of gray matter in the brain to combat the effects of hippocampus shrinkage regular exercise has shown to increase gray matter and increase memory it's also good to try and remember directions where

possible and generally try to use your memory instead of your phone where practical and if you still really just can't put your phone down apps like hippo camera can help hippoc camera is a really easyto ous smartphone application that mimics how the brain supports memory specific behaviors also don't do our brains any favors one of these is attemp to to multitask interestingly humans multitasking is a myth only 2.5% of us can do it effectively Katherine price writes about this in her book how to break up with your phone in particular she warns about the dangers

of continual partial attention it's checking your phone while mid conversation or scrolling on social media while watching TV sound familiar while we do this to attempt to be more productive it harms our cognitive Health in fact trying to consistently multitask can actually hinder your ability to think deep and complex thoughts it also can create a false sense of urgency which prevents our brain's ability to transfer information into long-term storage and from here it becomes harder to accumulate memories in summary every minute distracted by your phone is a lost minute in the here and now this

can leave behind a trail of Forgotten experiences and damage the ability to formulate deep and complex thoughts and long-term memories moving on to number two addiction now this de detrimental effect is more commonly known but did you know that nomophobia is the real fear of being away from one's phone for heavy users a study by Dr Larry rosson the author of The distracted mind revealed what a lack of smartphone access can do participants in the experiment were strapped to sweat and heat monitors as they read a passage their phones were Out Of Reach but they

could hear text notifications flooding in the result was a spike in anxiety and a drop in reading comprehension and this will affect more people as we all using our smartphones more between 2019 and 2023 average Mobile screen time shot up by 23% from 2 hours and 56 minutes to 3 hours and 46 minutes the average user now checks their phones 96 times per day research from a peer-reviewed medical journal Psychiatry research neuroimaging confirms that excessive smartphone use presents itself a lot like addiction weakening vital brain networks that control things like paying attention and stopping inul

fores this leads to withdrawal symptoms and continued use despite negative consequences there's a silent epidemic that we're neglecting one can imagine the impact albe it to varying degrees on the 6.84 billion smartphone users worldwide when you factor in the amount of developing brains that are using the devices what will be the end result as smartphone use increases each year even the smartphones creators are questioning the monster that they've Unleashed Tony Fidel who worked on the original iPhone team says quote I wake up in cold sweats every so often thinking what did we bring to the

world did we really bring a nuclear bomb with information that can like we see with fake news blow up people's brains and reprogram them end quote as a side I've done a full episode on the story of the people who created the iPhone if you're interested but zooming out we can't blame the phone manufacturers if you've watched The Social dilemma you would have seen former Tech employees expressing a sense of regret regarding the designs of social media apps we are increasingly glued to our phones just look at this 30 seconds we filmed outside Oxford Circus

earlier today all the white flashes are the phones people are on so we've left them in that room we've said we've left a camera on record to film them getting on and now we're just going to leave them there and see how many times they look at their phone Harry you got your phone out after 3 minutes is that a surprise to you it is it is a surprise to me actually cuz I I didn't think I used technology that that often I didn't think I was that dependent on it I'm surprised I lost it

4 minutes the role of addictive design in social media has been well documented Casino like features like pull to refresh mimic slot machines and exploit the pleasure of anticipating rewards and interestingly this can trigger larger dopamine spikes than the rewards themselves there's also infinite scrolling and autoplay to lull user into Mindless Behavior but a silver lining is that since 2018 Apple and Google have built digital wellbeing features into their phones to prevent overuse so the tools are there people just have to use them number three cognitive function a 2022 study found that our reading comprehension

declines when we read from a screen even if the text is exactly the same as it is on paper the chart you see now shows reading comprehension scores the red is reading from paper while the blue is reading from a phone in addition as mentioned at the top of this episode The mere presence of your smartphone in the same room room lowers your ability to focus remember and solve problems the phone doesn't even have to be switched on researchers at the University of Chicago call this brain drain it happens because the human brain has a

limited capacity to process information meaning we have to prioritize what we want to focus on when your phone is nearby it competes for cognitive resources and your brain must work extra hard to resist its Temptation This sabotages your concentration on other tasks so let's look at the experiment it's remarkable quote the researchers asked participants to either put their phones next to them so they were visible like on a desk nearby and out of sight like in a bag or pocket or in another room participants then completed a series of tasks to test their abilities to

process and remember information their problem solving and their focus they were found to perform far better when their phones were in another room instead of nearby whether visible powered on or not that held true even though most of the participants claimed not to be consciously thinking about their devices end quote so it's an effect that happens even though we don't notice it quite fascinating and finally number four stress smartphones aren't just changing our Behavior they're affecting human biology and the health risks can get pretty serious endocrinologist Robert lustig warns that smartphone notifications have turned us

all into Pavlov's dogs training our brains to be in a constant state of fear and stress here's how it happens one neurons in the prefrontal cortex are altered after exposure to a flood of neurotransmitters one common trigger of neurotransmitters to flood the brain is the anticipation of rewards like the UI on Instagram two this can cause our prefrontal cortex the brain's decision-making Hub and emotional control center to go completely haywire and even shut down and three when the prefrontal cortex shuts down the amydala responsible for emotional regulation takes over inducing stress and panic when our

prefrontal cortex is overworked in this state one's self-control can take a hit then to add to the pile there's the information that we receive from social media from Doom scrolling to the creation of young hypochondriacs on Tik Tok self diagnosing themselves into Oblivion the answer is yes you have trauma procrastination is actually a short-term coping tool to avoid feeling anxiety or dread a popular type of video on Tik Tok is five things you might not realize were a mental disorder and it's really gen generic things like biting your nails or fidgeting or being a people

pleaser I just need to take an anxiety nap can you wake me up in like 30 minutes I'm like not well in a lot of this discussion the problem isn't with the smartphones themselves but social media use and this was solidified by a 2023 Global study of over 50,000 participants but we have to stay level-headed there's research to suggest that about 30 minutes of daily social media is actually beneficial but going past about an hour can be detrimental one of the most most impactful outcomes of smartphones has been the way we consume daily news for

example when open AI released GPT 4 last week it might surprise you how different media covered the story in different ways take for example this story on the recent open AI Reddit content deal the story was reported on by 55 news outlets this left leaning headline from Business Insider frames the story as one regarding Big Data concerns a right-leaning Outlet focuses on the political orientation of Reddit users as well as the monetary size of the deal so when someone's scrolling through a news feed that's tailor made for them with news articles that confirm their bias

they're unlikely to see the other side of the story outside of their bubble and this is what the algorithms of today have created so it's important to get the whole picture and that's where today's sponsor ground news comes in ground news is a website and app developed by a former NASA engineer who was on a mission to give readers an easy datadriven objective way to read the news every story comes with a quick visual breakdown of political bias factuality and the ownership of the sources reporting all backed by ratings from three Independent News monitoring organizations

for example let's go back to that story on the open AI Reddit deal on ground news everything is organized to make it easy for you to see all the details their biased distribution shows you the political bias of the reporting Outlets below you can see the factuality information as well as the ownership information for this story 31% of reporting Outlets are owned by media conglomerate I especially like the blink feed which highlights stories that are heavily covered by one side of the political Spectrum it's important to utilize critical thinking and break out of online Echo

Chambers if we know where these views are coming from we're probably going to be better equipped to engage in constructive dialogue to those who hold different views ground news is a fantastic tool for sifting through the daily misinformation and bias they provide all the tools you need to be a critical thinker today I'm offering 40% off their Vantage subscription and this provides unlimited access of all their amazing features so subscribe today by going to ground. news/ coldfusion or click the link in the video description to get started thank you now back to the video so

what happens when people break away from smartphones completely well fortunately we have a slew of examples from those who are heavy smartphone users and decided to ditch them for a dumb phone the way they describe their experiences is pretty interesting let's take a quick look at some testimonials I was not ready for how much I truly enjoyed this phone I was present with my kids with my wife I was able to be reached by friends and family bit about my experience just what is it like living without a smartphone for those of us who grew

up in the '90s I think there's a lot of nostalgia around that time and for me a lot of that is about the fact that nobody had a smartphone or even a cell phone but I was surprised and excited to find that I could kind of reconnect with some of the benefits of that time through this experiment I've been much more focused at work because all of my work now takes place in front of the computer so I'm much more intentional and focused when it is actually time to work I have time for Creative Hobbies

because I'm not scrolling through social media or news or anything on my phone my phone doesn't do anything fun and that means I have time to get bored have you ever been bored as an adult I don't think I had until this experiment but boredom equals creativity but then there were others and this group wasn't quite ass sold on the dumb phone idea and quickly found themselves reverting back to a smartphone all right so I'm nearly finished with this 30-day experiment and if I'm being completely honest I cannot wait to get back to a smartphone

I entered this experiment really wanting it to work really wanting to find a phone that would give me all the tools I needed while removing the headaches my smartphone causes but unfortunately I don't know if I'm ready to make the switch full time not having a camera the spotty directions and the clunky typing are the biggest deal breakers for me this is the phone that you could literally only call with which is great if that's all I needed but I'd have to be damn confident with my job security and my friendships because I could see

how easily I could lose connections and friendships due to my inability to respond there are more people giving dumb phones a try so much so that some call it the anti smartphone Revolution you can check out my podcast episode with KY Tang the co-founder of lightone and I discussed this topic in depth with him so if you've gotten to this part of the episode you're probably in one of three camps one all of this information is new to you or the second Camp you've heard some of this before and learned some new things or even

if you're one of those who have heard all of this before I think it's important to remind ourselves but what about the bigger picture what does all of this mean it's insane to think that there's the possibility that hundreds of millions or even billions of people out there could have worse memory worse concentration smaller gray matter and increased anxiety due to Chronic smartphone overuse I'm going to ask you do you think this explains part of the world we live in today although it all sounds terrible fortunately there are very practical things that can be done

as we've talked about number one exercise two avoid the overuse of social media three stop multitasking four if you want to increase comprehension choose to read physical media instead of your phone and five if you want to improve memory limit phone use for memory tasks where possible at the end of the day the power is still in our hands so what's your opinion on all of this did this speak to you do you think he use your smartphone too much or do you think you've got everything under control I'd love to hear from you in

the comments so anyway that is how your smartphone is rewiring your brain thanks for watching hope you learned something from it if this is your first time watching feel free to subscribe there's plenty of interesting stuff on science technology and business my name is toogo and youve been watching cold fusion and I'll catch you again soon for the next episode cheers guys have a good one I feel I'm getting older older the B older older I feel I'm getting older older look feel I'm getting old [Music]