Is Your Phone Changing The Way You Think?

Finding it hard to concentrate? It could be down to your smartphone. Julia Llewellyn Smith discovers how to retrain your brain – and your habits

- Julia Llewellyn Smith

Curled up on the sofa, officially watching a documentary, my right hand is fiddling incessantly with my smartphone. I like the presenter’s top, so I google “white lacy T-shirt with collar”, but on the way to find it I’m distracted by a link about a tap-dancing whippet. I decide to check Facebook but in the middle of composing a witty reply to the status update of a woman I’ve never met but who for some reason counts as one of my “friends”, I’m distracted by my email pinging. What was the presenter saying about ancient Greece? I turn to ask my husband but he’s busy on WhatsApp.

My name is Julia, and it’s fair to say I’m a smartphone addict, checking it all day long and panicking if I misplace it. My children are nearly as bad. Mercifully, phones are banned at my 13-year-old’s school but when she’s with her friends they no longer chat, instead they sit in a circle scrolling silently. My 10-year-old daughter doesn’t have a phone, but grabs mine at every opportunity to message friends and gape at YouTube videos.

It’s hard to remember life any other way, but smartphones have only been around for 11 years. I only got mine five years ago, but in that short period I’ve noticed myself becoming increasingly butterfly-brained, finding it harder to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds. “Mum, why do you take so long to answer my questions?” my youngest asks. The answer is because my attention’s diverted by messages, news bulletins and shopping opportunities.

Teen screen time