Don’t Touch That Smartphone

The stack of phones in the middle of the table is buzzing. Three friends, gathered for an after-work drink at a local pub, are anxious. Mike, Jacob, and Elisse had all set their phones to vibrate. Only Karen sits smugly, looking over the menu with a bemused smile, knowing one of the others would soon give in. She’d turned her phone off. There was no way she was paying for dinner tonight. “Phone Stack” is a game of sorts but also a response to the culture of multitasking and technology overload that has pervaded every aspect of our social lives. When a group goes out to dinner or for drinks, phones get stacked in the center of the table, the idea being that they are off-limits. The first person to give in—to answer a call, check in on Foursquare, take a quick look to see who that text is from, or even grab the phone “just to check the time” gets stuck with the bill. The bigger the group is, the higher the stakes (Tell, 2013).

Stepping away from the bings, beeps, and buzzes that connect us to our social networks can be a challenge. But it’s also important that we give those in our physical presence our undivided attention—something that’s hard to do if you’re worried that you might miss some important information coming in on your smartphone. And although it may seem like you can easily attend to the people you’re with and the people you’re online with, you really can’t. According to cognitive researchers, the human brain doesn’t really multitask—it just divides its attention. That means we’re never really paying attention to more than one thing at a time; we’re just constantly toggling between tasks (Wallis, 2006). Recent evidence suggests that multitasking doesn’t just affect our ability to focus at a specific time—it actually has lasting effects on the way we think and react even when we’re determined to focus on just one thing. “The technology is rewiring our brains,” notes Nora Volkow, one of the world’s leading brain scientists (Richtel, 2010). And although there is some evidence of benefits to multitasking, on the whole, those identified as multitaskers are far less adept at filtering out extraneous information in order to focus on what is important (Richtel, 2010). This important part of the listening process—selecting—suffers when we try to attend to several things at once.

So when you pick up your phone to check out your opponent’s hundred-point move in Words with Friends, remember that you are actually ignoring your dining partner’s story about her last Words with Friends victory. Oh, and bear in mind that you might wind up picking up the tab, too.