Your phone is making you worse at your job

Many of us have a love-hate relationship with our smartphones. We often experience overwhelming desires to pick them up, but we can’t understand why we feel so unfulfilled after we put them down. For many, an over-dependence on our phones affects our lives, and author Catherine Price explains why in her book How to Break Up With Your Phone.
Our desire to reach for our phones in times of anxiety or boredom is in direct response to the dopamine hit we get when we check  them, knowing that we’ll receive new information (conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs, we get a hit of dopamine just thinking about picking up our phones!) They’re designed to be addictive. Tristan Harris, former Design Ethicist at Google, likens smartphones to slot machines, which both deliver ‘intermittent rewards’ to keep us coming back for more while promoting compulsive behaviour.
Studies show that “…spending extended time on them has the power to change both the structure and the function of our brains – including our abilities to form new memories, think deeply, focus, and absorb and remember what we read.” Yikes! Below are two ways overusing of your phone can make you worse at your job, as well as what you can do about it. 

 

• Your phone affects your ability to focus. Our phones are distraction machines. Thousands of well-paid developers are employed to keep us on our phones for as long as possible. Psychologists realize that humans crave new information – and our phones are full of new, distracting information which is difficult to ignore. A constant loss of focus means that we’re having trouble doing ‘deep work’ for any extended period of time. This loss of focus means that you can’t immerse yourself in your work in the same way you’d be able to without distraction, leading to lower quality of work or, at the very least, spending a greater amount of time on a project than necessary. The solution? Put down your phone and don’t pick it up again until you’re completely finished your task.

• Your phone impacts your ability to think creatively. A couple of hours before you fall asleep each night, your brain releases the chemical melatonin to tell your body it’s time to sleep. In the morning, daylight hits the back of your eyes and tells your body to stop producing melatonin. But when we use our smartphone screens late at night, we’re confusing our eyes by exposing them to the same type of light emitted by the sun. Not only does this blue light harm our ability to fall asleep and stay deeply asleep, but the nature of the activities on our phones are also stimulating. Whether playing a game, watching a show, or checking social media, the constant stimulation makes it more difficult to sleep soundly. Why does this matter? Creative problem solving, your ability to think creatively and to form new ideas are directly influenced by your quality of sleep. The solution? If you want to boost your creativity put down your phone, take a nap, and then stare out a window. 

 
Here are some techniques to reclaim your time and attention from your smartphone:

• Download a tracking app to assess your current relationship with your phone so you can learn how, when, and what you’re spending your time on.
• Turn off notifications for some or all apps to regain your ability to choose when you want to receive information – versus it coming at you rapid-fire at all times of the day and night.
• Turn off your phone (or at least silence all notifications) in the evening and at night.
• Delete apps that aren’t adding value to your life (you know the ones!)

Finally, there’s no need to give up your phone entirely. It helps you stay connected to clients, provides answers to nearly every question imaginable, and helps us to navigate the world. Also, there’s nothing wrong with mindless distraction as long you control of it – rather than passively experiencing it at the hands (and minds) of the developers in Silicon Valley.