Keeping a smartphone in hand and frequent checking is linked to extraversion and poorer performance on tests of sustained attention and general intelligence, particularly semantic reasoning

Pluck, Graham. 2020. “Cognitive Ability, Reward Processing and Personality Associated with Different Aspects of Smartphone Use.” PsyArXiv. March 24. doi:10.31234/osf.io/sqfu2

Abstract: Smartphone use has become ubiquitous. Keeping smartphones close and always on, with alerts for new messages, etc., means that users experience unprecedented levels of distracting and reinforcing stimulation, with wide-ranging psychological implications. We interviewed 121 students to record aspects of smartphone use, personality, psychological distress (depression/anxiety), cognitive, social-cognitive, and reward processing. We found that questionnaire-measured problematic phone use is linked to poorer academic performance and to higher psychological distress, neuroticism, psychometric impulsivity and image management. Social media use is linked to neuroticism. Keeping a smartphone in hand and frequent checking is associated with extraversion and poorer performance on tests of sustained attention and general intelligence, particularly semantic reasoning. The number of messenger services used is associated with sensitivity to financial rewards and responses to social reinforcement in an instrumental/operant conditioning task. However, the later result links messenger use to resistance to reinforcement, implying a goal-directed association driven by demand characteristics. Overall, the current results, and review of extant literature, suggest that there are generally negative impacts of smartphone use on psychological health, including cognitive function. Furthermore, variation in responses to reward and reinforcement is an important individual differences factor linked particularly to social communication with instant messaging services.