Study reveals extent of smartphones’ damage on brains, responsibility, self-control

Addictions to smartphones are having devastating effects on Americans’ responsibility, commitment, and self-control capabilities, a recent Financial Times analysis of data from the Understanding America Study indicated.

Colby Hall, founding editor of news outlet Mediaite, wrote in an op-ed that the study’s results are “beyond alarming” and demonstrate that the once-hyperbolic worry that screen time causes damage to brains is now a scientific fact.

According to the study, the capabilities of responsibility, follow-through, and self-control — all of which fall under the umbrella trait of “conscientiousness” — have decreased for all three age groups studied — ages 60 and older, ages 40 to 59, and ages 16 to 39 — but especially for the youngest group. The youngest adults group also stands out for greater increases in neuroticism and decreases in agreeableness compared with the other two groups. Each group experienced about a 10-point percentile drop in extroversion, but the youngest group’s drop was still the most dramatic decrease.

“Older adults (who aren’t addicted to smartphones), meanwhile, remain essentially unchanged,” Hall reported.

The Financial Times wrote that smartphones and streaming services are likely related to the study’s findings, adding, “The advent of ubiquitous and hyper-engaging digital media has led to an explosion in distraction, as well as making it easier than ever to either not make plans in the first place or to abandon them.”

Hall noted that the analysis also suggests smartphone users are more committed to a digital world than the real one and more interested in moving away from trust and relationships with other people. He added that the shift away from consciousness and toward a deeper involvement with the digital world is causing a revolution bigger than the printing press created hundreds of years ago.

“When Gutenberg’s press arrived in the 15th century, it rewired the world by making knowledge scalable,” Hall wrote. “It took centuries for that transformation to ripple through every corner of human society. The smartphone has done something similar — only it’s moving at light speed, and in the opposite direction.”

Hall wrote that the massive progression of technology in such a short time has created an “infinitely stimulating ‘meta-world.’” Access to the meta-world is allowed at the price of losing the ability to have “deep, sustained focus.”

“The skill of delaying gratification, resisting impulse, and staying the course is being replaced by an addiction to novelty, validation, and stimulation,” Hall continued. “The more we indulge, the less we can resist indulging — and the chart’s freefalling red line for young adults shows exactly where that road leads. The speed of this shift should terrify us.”

Hall also pointed out that smartphones “have rewired how an entire generation thinks, feels, and relates to the world,” meaning that there is no way to undo the damage that has already been caused. Instead, he proposed starting with recognition of the problem, writing that unless the harm done to human focus can be realized, “there’s no hope of slowing the decline — much less reversing it.”

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