Putting your phone upside down on the table isn’t enough.
Putting it in a drawer isn’t enough.
Even turning it off isn’t enough.
If you want to stop being distracted by your phone, put it in another room.
That’s what researchers found when they had hundreds of students perform a series of cognitive tests.
- Some were asked to put their phone face down on the desk,
- Others to put it in their bag or pocket, and
- A third group to leave their phone in another room.
Those who left it in another room performed significantly better than those who left it on the desk, and slightly better than those who left it in their bag.
It turns out that the closer our phone is to us - even if it’s off - the more it steals our ability to concentrate.
👉 This is such a great reminder that often the easiest way to change behaviour is to change the environment.
Ref: Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity, Adrian F. Ward, Kristen Duke, Ayelet Gneezy, and Maarten W. Bos Journal of the Association for Consumer Research 2017 2:2, 140-154
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