Is your smart phone ruining your memory & making you less smart?
Photo: Centre for Ageing Better
Cast your mind back to a time before smartphones, when instead of tapping away on your small screen, we did mental arithmetic to split a restaurant bill or work out our earnings, carried a map to find our way, used a pen and paper – or relied on our memory – to take notes or jot down reminders. (Remember the Filofax, must-have accessory of the 80s?!) We kept up with current events via newspapers, TV and radio, discovered what our friends and family were up to by actually talking to them (and knew their phone numbers off-by-heart), and had to leave the house to buy things. And we daydreamed, staring into space, rather than mindlessly scrolling through social media.
It’s quite telling about how much we take smartphones for granted, isn’t it, that I had to really think about how we used to do this stuff.
Now we can do all this on our smartphones. And of course, all that functionality at your fingertips frees up time to do other things. Or does it? Brits spent an average of three hours and 46 minutes a day on their smartphones last year…
Your memory and your mobile
All that convenience could come at another cost. ‘Digital dementia’, a term coined in 2012 by neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer, describes how over-use of digital technology can affect our cognitive ability and memory. This may be more of a problem for younger people, as they have always lived with smartphones, whereas I managed for around four decades without one.
Since I came across that term ‘digital dementia’ recently, I’ve been actively trying to rely less on my smartphone for tasks such as navigating, instead using my memory for places I’ve been before, and clues around me, such as street maps, or even asking someone. And for questions like ‘what have I seen that actor in?’ I’ve tried to think about it, at least for a while, rather than instantly whipping out my phone. Sometimes it works! There are some more cutting-down-on-phone-use tips in a previous feature of mine.
Signing up for a study
While I was researching this blog post, I joined a study by the University of Exeter in partnership with King’s College London and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. They are recruiting 50,000 people over 40 to join the 25-year study, which aims to understand how brain function, and our health and wellbeing, change as we age. This will provide valuable information about the brain and could inform future research to prevent conditions such as dementia. Once you’ve completed the first assessments, you can access brain-training games proven to help maintain brain function in a large clinical trial. Find out more (and sign up if you want) here.
How to boost your brain
Leave your phone in another room and go offline!
Stimulate your five senses by engaging as many of them together as possible. Go for a walk, enjoy the sights, smells and sounds of spring.
Learn a new skill, such as photography, painting or drawing, crochet or embroidery. Learn a new language. Learn how to turn off notifications on your phone (!). Teaching skills to others is also beneficial.
Listen to music, play an instrument, or sing; all shown to improve concentration.
Visit a gallery or museum. Research says that ‘cultural attendance’ has a protective effect against dementia. Here are some ideas for 2024 (UK exhibitions HERE, European HERE, USA HERE and Australian exhibitions HERE)
Play cards or do a jigsaw. (Some libraries lend jigsaws).
And a quick memory test: what decade was mentioned in the first paragraph?
More research on digital dementia (sometimes know as digital amnesia) HERE.
Adrienne Wyper is a health and lifestyle writer and regular TNMA contributor.
Discussion (11 Comments)
Sarah P says:
There is strong evidence that the way to reduce one’s dementia risk is by behaviours such as regular exercise, less / no alcohol, not smoking, and protecting one’s hearing (or if you already have a hearing problem then by using hearing aids) see
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-risk-of-dementia/reduce-your-risk-of-dementia#:~:text=These%20include%20keeping%20active%2C%20eating,(aged%2040%E2%80%9365) .All those interventions also have wider health benefits, e.g. to mental health and health health. Various “brain training” apps and games have been proposed before, but if they have any benefit at all (which is unclear) then it is FAR smaller than the benefit from the simple interventions that are known to be effective.
Ciclochick says:
Spot on, I have read this many times…and actually, regular exercise, no alcohol/smoking, not being overweight are all protectants against many, many things. I have also read that it’s not doing crosswords/sudoku/puzzles etc that actually help prevent dementia (they are good things to do, though) but learning something new and unfamiliar to you. That, apparently, stimulates new brain cells. Habitual things don’t. I’m off to train to be a brain surgeon (aged 70)……..
Yvonne says:
Smartphones are the bain of my existence or rather people who have no cellphone etiquette. You can’t out anywhere where people are not ‘yakking” on their phone. You can’t enjoy going to a coffee shop and enjoy your coffee in peace. Everybody is on their phones and they are really loud. Lack of savoir-vivre. I don’t own a phone and rely on the methods you mentioned. But, if you don’t have a phone you miss on things. For example yesterday I went to get a coffee and to redeem my rewards the barista told me that I needed to download the app on my phone. I told her that I didn’t own a phone and she exclaimed ‘What? I thought she was going to faint and then told me that I couldn’t get my rewards. How’s that? Sorry about the ranting but I certainly agreed that people are less smart.
Helen says:
I recently came across a carpark that requires you to download their app. There was no other payment option. And even my tech savvy husband found it wasn’t straight forward.
In a funnier scene, I noted a family group approaching Costa Coffee at a motorway services. The teenagers headed straight for the new service screens to place their order. Meanwhile older relatives rolled their eyes, muttered something under their breath, walked up to the empty counter and just spoke to the assistant.
I am amazed at how many young people I see with their faces looking downward on a cell phone — everywhere. They ignore the beauty of the nature trail they are walking on, risk tripping on uneven sidewalks in the city, etc., because they never look up. Sometimes they run you off the trail or the walkway because they are not paying attention to anything but the small screen on the phone. Sometimes they run other people off the road because they are looking at their phones. Dangerous, yes? (As long as we’re talking about aging, my dermatologist says the next generation is going to have fun battling turkey neck and poor neck posture because of looking downward at digital devices so much, LOL!)
I have limited my use of social media (not on Facebook anymore) so I am not constantly checking my devices for updates or worrying about missing things online. I focus on what’s around me, in the present moment. I do use my phone to text and make calls when needed, but I keep it in my purse or pocket.
Janet says:
I still use a Filofax and am on my 4th, now a slim version. My first was given me by my brother-in-law in the late 1980’s and was useful when I had a full-time job and two children. I still use it to note appointments for hair, dentist, hospital and so on, as I find writing it down helps me to remember them. I do use a smart phone, its the best way of keeping in touch with my son and daughter-in-law in Switzerland., via WhatsApp.
John Muller says:
I have a cell phone, but I have a wonderful app on it: OFF.
Thanks for this article. I have thought this was the case, but never really saw any information regarding it.
Frankie 
Jill Hunter 
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Adrienne, this was a wonderful blog. I have a smartphone, and I only use it if I need to text/make a call. I find it unfortunate when I see people using their phones all the time – from surfing the Internet to watching a video on You Tube. I also find it rude when I am having a conversation with someone, and that person is scrolling/texting on their phone. Go into a restaurant or a coffee shop, and see the number of people on their phones – whatever happened to the art of conversation without using a mobile device.