Kaspersky Lab Smartphone Dependency Study suggests smartphones are killing Reasoning and Sex

“Digital amnesia should not be taken lightly. Yes, a smartphone has become almost a necessity for anyone who lives in today’s society and it’s an essential professional and personal tool for communication. However, it is very important to limit ones dependency on it primarily because of its addictive properties. The mind is a muscle and it if it’s not used for the reasons it was made, it will become lazy”

Managing Director – South Asia of Kaspersky Lab, Altaf Halde commenting on their study on Smartphone addiction and Human cognition

Smartphone addiction, called Nomophobia, is very real.

But is Nomophobia, the phobia related to being without your smartphone for extended periods of time, a real medical condition, comparable to addiction? And is it causing humans to slowly lose their ability to remember basic facts and reason logically?

It might be, but few studies have been done to even give basic evidence of this in the wild. The reason is quite clear; Telecom Providers, Telecom Equiptment maker an even OEM (Original Equiptment manufactures) of smartphones are unwilling to support or fund studies that suggest in any way that their products and services cause any addiction, as the video below suggests.

So I was quite pleased to stumble across this very simple study conducted by anti-virus company Kaspersky Lab that suggests smartphone addiction is leading to Memory amnesia and reduced logical as reported in the article “Smartphone Addiction Causes Digital Amnesia: Kaspersky”, published August 21, 2015 by Siddhant Ghatge, Trak.in.

The study was conducted with 1,007 adult smartphone users in India to determine if they could remember basic information stored in their smartphones e.g. spouse or children's phone numbers without looking in their smartphone.

The results are shocking and indicate the degree of smartphone dependency:

1. 2 out of 10 could recall their child’s school’s contact number
2. 7 out of 10 could recall their spouse’s phone numbers
3. 1 in 3 could not recall the phone number for the house they'd lived in when aged 10
4. 1 in 3 would use their smartphone to Google the answer for a question

The graph below illustrates the answers to the last survey question even more dramatically.

So what does all this mean!? We’re merging with our smartphones, like the Borg in Star Trek, Star Trek TNG Style!

Kaspersky Lab Smartphone Dependency Study – Helps College Students but addictive to Adults

The study indicated that smartphone dependency was more acute among Teenagers (ages 13 to 17) with Millennials (ages 18 to 28) being next. Apparently, the younger the person polled and the earlier they were introduced to smartphones, the more dependent they were on the smartphone to augment their memory.

This implies logically that their dependence would grow with time, albeit the sample size and the location of the participants meant that the results may not be so easily replicated.

But it does fit with my personal experience, the main thing that matters to me, as science is yet to even be able to catch up with this problem.

What I’ve observed at MICO University College among the female population is that once you're using a smartphone, with so many apps to distract you along with games, you'll find your hours wasted away switching from app to app. You might even end up just relying on one particular app, usually Social Media Apps such as Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp or Twitter.

People have become so dependent on their smartphones, they no longer remember basic facts even about their OWN lives.

Instead, they remember where to find the information i.e. websites and Search Engines, rather than the information itself as noted in a 2011 Survey of 1 million students by StudyBlue as detailed in my Geezam blog article entitled “StudyBlue reveals Smartphones, Tablets make you smarter – The Big Bang Theory on Google”.

This may be beneficial if you're in college but it's bad if you’re not in College or University and don't already have the Research discipline in place to discern fact from fiction online. 

Plus with so many distractions your smartrphone, your device is more to become a hindrance or crutch for your memory than a research tool, as the Kaspersky Lab Survey indicates.

Google on your smartphione - The Slow Death of Human Reasoning

Google makes it very easy to do basic research and find articles or YouTube videos on any topic.

This is now especially easy as they're now ranking websites in terms of their ease of viewing on a smartphone since April 2015 as reported in my blog article entitled “@Google wants smartphone-friendly Websites - Pricier Sponsored Search Results Prices for Small Business's Shopaholics”. 

Microsoft owned Bing Search Engine has also being doing the same thing as well as noted in “Bing to follow Google in rewarding mobile-friendly websites”, published May 14, 2015 by Lance Whitney, CNET News and “Bing Follows Google With Its Own “Mobile-Friendly” Ranking Algorithm Change”, published May 14, 2015 by Sarah Perez, Techcrunch.

It's just simply the faster and is the easiest thing to do, as we already purchased the smartphone and the corresponding Data Plan and it's in your pocket.  So why not use it to answer every little query that comes to mind?

Alas, that's what this study suggests is happening, but this dependence on the smartphone, Apps and the Search Engines such as Google is slowly killing not only short term memory but logical reasoning by the brain.

Also, this dependency means whenever you have a question that needs answering, you're more likely to draw for your smartphone. Depending on whose study you believe, this translates to an improved organization and prioritization of information, as you now know where to find it rather than remembering the information itself.

When you’re not questioning the world around you, it keeps you glued to that screen, ignoring the world around you instead of trying to remember things or interacting with your fellow human beings.

But if screen time is killing off your memory, reasoning ability and possibly human interaction, can it potentially be killing of your sex life?

Smartphones vs Sex - Why smartphones are bad for human relationships as AI sex partners coming

It's gotten so bad that some people have proclaimed that they prefer smartphones over sex as reported in the article “Over One-Third Indians Prefer Smartphones Over Sex: Survey”, published July 30, 2015 by Nikita Wable, Trak.in.  Not surprisingly, the revelations in this study have been known as far back as 2013, as this video demonstrates.

In a KRC Research survey of 7,000 globally, the results are equally shocking:

1.      74% of Indians have slept with the smartphone in hand

2.      41% have used the device in washrooms

3.      22% of people globally would give up sex for their smartphones

4.      35% of people in India would give up sex for their smartphones

So what's the solution? 

Take some serious away time form your smartphone as well as follow my helpful tips to cure yourself of Nomophobia as laid out in my blog article entitled “How to deal with Smartphone Addiction – Trend towards Wearables indicates Smartphone Addiction getting worse”.

Otherwise, we may be seeing the coming of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in our lives as ideal sex partners, Humans Style.

After all, they're already set to replace Fast Food Workers and chefs as pointed out in my blog article entitled “US$15,000 Moley Robotics Cooking Robot – Cooking Robot seeking Taste for Human Food to take over in 2017”.

Also, self-driving vehicles to carry cargo across America have been developed and are in use by Freightliner, a sister company to Mercedez-Benz as reported in my blog article entitled “Freightliner Inspiration Highway Pilot Trucks in Nevada – How in Sin City is testing Self-Driving Trucks and Why Jamaica's perfect for off-Road Testing”. 

Good to take a little time to interact with people and put the smartphone aside. If it starts messing with your sex and relationships with other humans, AI's in the future will begin to replace humans in relationships. By then, Resistance will be futile, Star Trek TNG Style.

Here's the link:

How to deal with Smartphone Addiction – Trend towards Wearables indicates Smartphone Addiction getting worse