14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers from the University of Missouri have published the results of a study according to which people deprived of their iPhones will perform badly at tests. Dubbed “The Extended iSelf,” the paper looks at the impact caused by iPhone separation on cognition, emotion, and physiology.
Published by the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, the study took individual notice of key aspects regarding a person’s behavior after being stripped of their iPhone, including cognition, anxiety, and physiology.
Dumber without their iPhones
The test description suggests not only that users were separated from their iDevices but also that they were actually still close to them, able to hear them ring, yet weren’t allowed to touch them.
Word puzzles were handed out to assess the subjects’ before-and-after performance. In a nutshell, when they didn’t have their iPhones with them, the participants appeared to be dumber.
“Among the key findings from this study were that when iPhone users were unable to answer their ringing iPhone during a word search puzzle, heart rate and blood pressure increased, self-reported feelings of anxiety and unpleasantness increased, and self-reported extended self and cognition decreased. These findings suggest that negative psychological and physiological outcomes are associated with iPhone separation and the inability to answer one's ringing iPhone during cognitive tasks,” reads the paper.
Our take
While the survey findings are indeed interesting and most likely accurate too, we’d like to make our own assessment of the published report.
Basically, what this study has really managed to prove is that people are stressed out when they lose their wireless ties to the world. We'd say this is a normal societal aspect in today’s tech-driven world, and we’re pretty sure it has nothing to do with Apple as a brand, or the iPhone as a smartphone.
The same thing would have probably happened to a Nokia 3310 user 15 years ago. Making a person take a test with their phone ringing next to them is downright sadistic, to be perfectly frank.