Ok, let me just start this post by making it clear I LOVE my cell phone.  It keeps me connected to my daughter at college and I can send quick messages to people I care about without bothering them.  It frees me up physically and psychologically because I know that my interns from work or my mother’s caregiver can get a hold of me wherever I am, when needed.  I see how it opens up our social worlds and puts information at our fingertips (I never have to buy a map and I always know when my favorite Pottery Barn item is on sale).  But like most of us, I tend to think I ‘m not one of “those people” when it comes to being addicted to my phone.  But I came across a study this week that made me stop and think about the effect of my cell phone.  What really caught my attention was the fact that we are impacted not just when we use our phone, but just by its mere presence,  that I thought was worth sharing and reflecting on in this week’s post.

Having a smartphone nearby, even when turned off, reduces our ability to think and reason, new research from the University of Texas, Austin, concludes.  A team of investigators conducted two studies in which 800 people engaged in tasks with their smartphones placed either nearby and in sight (face down on the table), nearby but out of sight (in their pocket or a bag), or in a separate room.  The researchers found the mere presence of the phone reduced performance, even though the people involved reported they were not thinking about their phone.  As smart phone salience increased, the performance on tests of cognitive capacity decreased.  The interesting thing was that when asked about the frequency of thinking about the phone, the average self report for all groups was “not at all.”  

The researchers then repeated the experimental situation, adding a group for each condition where the phone was actually turned off – the phone was off but in sight, turned off and out of sight, or turned off and in another room.  The results were the same, supporting the linear trend that as your smart phone becomes more noticeable , your available cognitive capacity decreases.  Interestingly, the participants who reported the highest dependence on their smart phone benefitted the most in terms of performance by leaving their phone in another room.

In reflecting on the study, the lead researcher, Dr. Adrian Ward, suggests, “Your conscious mind isn’t thinking about your smart phone, but that process – the process of requiring yourself not to think about something – uses up some of your limited cognitive resources.  It’s a brain drain.”  Professor Larry Rosen, of California State University, author of The Distracted Mind, has also researched the effects of merely having your smart phone nearby, and concludes, “People feel compelled to check their phones.  Even if the phone does not vibrate or they do not get notifications.”  His research confirms that this checking behavior increases anxiety and creates difficulties in processing information.  If you are interrupting your train of thought, it is going to be much  harder to absorb information or think deeply.

So for me, in thinking about my phone habits, I must confess I often have my phone sitting on my desk, and what the research suggests does ring true.  I do tend to check it, each time thinking it is just a brief, harmless pause.  But what I also wonder about is the many times I’m sitting with people I care about at home or in a coffee shop, and my phone is out on the table or in a bag by my side.  What is this doing to our intimacy and our ability to truly listen and understand each other?  It’s so annoying when you see someone’s eyes glance over to their phone or they pick it up to “multitask” while you are talking.   I realize in thinking about this research, that not only is it rude, but that the phone between us is much more than just a phone between us.  Next time, in order to be the kind of friend I want to be, I might just need to leave it in the car.

People often complain about how awful it is to feel guilty.  Ironically, though, I notice that the people who express feelings of guilt the most often are also the people I would say are the most considerate. So when I saw the study I describe in today’s post, it made sense to me, and showed me the upside of guilt.

According to La Trobe University’s (Australia) Matt Treeby and colleagues (2016), the guilt-prone are more aware and more sensitive to the emotional expressions of others. If you’re worried that you’ve hurt someone else, they reason, you’ll be highly attuned to judging people’s emotional states (and whether they’re mad at you) from their faces. People who have the tendency to feel guilty are likely to expend a fair degree of mental energy on concerns about the negative effect their behavior may have had on other people. Guilt, then, has various adaptive qualities in terms of helping you interact with others in a more prosocial fashion. If you’re worried about hurting people, you’ll try to restrain your anger or aggression. Moreover, according to the Australian team, you’ll also stay away from high-risk impulsive or addictive behaviors. Previous research conducted a number of years ago by George Mason University’s June Tangney, showed that people inclined toward guilt were higher in empathy. Not only do the guilt-prone want to gauge accurately the emotions of others, but they also can resonate more closely to the way they’re feeling when they’ve been wronged.

Too much of anything, as we know, is never good, and the same is true about guilt. Excessive guilt is one of the symptoms of depression. And research shows that people who have low self esteem tend to experience more than a healthy dose of guilt, overburdening themselves with the feeling of being bad, not just doing bad (making bad choices). In fact, shame, when someone feels they themselves are bad, was actually found by the Australian team, to make people more self focused rather than sensitive to others. The response of those who experience shame is to reduce the pain of their poor self image by withdrawing or to hiding that they have done anything wrong, rather than tend to the other person and make amends.

Guilt can also lead to trouble if you are prone to feeling guilty for things that are beyond your control or for things you did by accident, without intention. This guilt can not be rectified and therefore lingers, causing helplessness and hurting your esteem. In these cases, it is best to transform your attitude into one of regret rather than guilt. On the other hand, if you can accept responsibility when you have done wrong to someone else and make amends, research shows this actually works to build self esteem.

So, the next time you feel guilty, look at the bright side. It means you are a thoughtful and caring person. Hopefully, you also have the self esteem and maturity to accept responsibility for your behavior and take action. This may require some humility and saying you’re sorry, but you will feel lighter and feel more love in the long run.