Smartphones may have helped us a great deal by providing us with access to the Internet at our finger tips, but they have turned us into lazy thinkers, a new research has claimed by adding that such convenience at our fingertips is making it easy for us to avoid thinking for ourselves.
Researchers have claimed that smartphone users frequently use their device’s search engine rather than their own brainpower and such a behaviour is much more common in intuitive thinkers – those who are prone to relying on gut feelings and instincts when making decisions.
“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,” said Gordon Pennycook, from department of psychology at the University of Waterloo in a press release.
Analytical thinkers on the other hand are more used to second-guessing themselves and analysing a problem in a more logical sort of way.
The study involving 660 participants, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, says that people are avoid the effort to think for themselves and are increasingly using their smartphones as an extended mind that does the ‘thinking’ work for them.
“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,” said lead author Nathaniel Barr.
Researchers examined various measures in participants including cognitive style ranging from intuitive to analytical, plus verbal and numeracy skills. Then they looked at the participants’ smartphone habits.
The research found that those participants who demonstrated stronger cognitive skills and a greater willingness to think in an analytical way are less likely to use their smartphones and and spent less time using their smartphones’ search engine function.
“Our reliance on smartphones and other devices (is likely) to rise. It is important to understand how smartphones affect and relate to human psychology before these technologies are so fully ingrained that it’s hard to recall what life was like without them,” cautioned Barr.
Researchers found that there is an association between heavy smartphone use and lowered intelligence. The researchers said that avoiding using our own minds to problem-solve might have adverse consequences for ageing.
Whether smartphones actually decrease intelligence is still an open question that requires future research, Pennycook added.
The results also indicate that use of social media and entertainment applications generally did not correlate to higher or lower cognitive abilities.
