R3 2.2 January 22, 2024 Complications for Forbidding Phones in Class: Notifications Get In the Way of Learning, Too
In this issue, we’ll take a look at one of the more recent studies in a long line of work on digital distractions during learning.
Policies for personal technology in class are an issue of perpetual interest to faculty, who frequently look to research to back up different approaches. There is some theoretical interest here too, as this work further drives home how much phones have gotten under our skin, psychologically speaking, with effects that extend past physical proximity to the devices themselves.
Citation:
O'Toole, K. J. (2024). Perpetually preoccupied: Applying interference framework to understand the effects of smartphone use and vibrations on an academic task. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 38(1), e4137. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.4137
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.4137
Paywall or Open:
Paywall
Summary:
Distractions from a main task can take many forms, including external stimuli (sights, sounds), interruptions from secondary tasks (as in multitasking), or even internal intrusions (off-topic thoughts, memories, and emotions). Phones are capable of producing all of these, including internal distractions triggered by notifications that can’t be responded to in the moment. Because of the close connection between attention and learning, as well as the need to set well-informed policies for technology in class, understanding these issues is important for instructors and educational psychologists. In this study, researchers asked undergraduate student participants to complete a simulated academic task, in which they read and then took a quiz on a short article. While they were reading, they either actively responded to brief texts, heard vibrating notifications but could not see or respond to the messages, or had no contact with the phone at all. Performance, total time to complete the quiz, and emotional variables (anxiety, stress, and feeling of overwhelm) were measured. Hearing vibrations from the phone, as well as actively using the phone, during simulated study impeded performance and quiz time, but did not conclusively increase anxiety/stress/overwhelm.
Research Questions (from the article):
“What are the performance costs of a vibrating smartphone compared to using a smartphone on an academic task?”
“What effect do smartphone use and vibration notifications have on negative aspects of well-being (anxiety, stress, and sense of overwhelm)?”
Sample:
105 undergraduate college students; 79% female, 20% male, 1% nonbinary, with a mean age of about 21.
Method/Design:
Participants were told to complete a simulated study task, in which they read one article that was either easy or hard. Easy articles were at a 7th grade reading level, compared to 11th grade level for the hard article, and were on a more relatable and concrete topic (monsters in movies vs. cash bail in the California legal system). They were told there would be a quiz following study, and that they could take as much time as they needed to read the assigned article, up to a maximum of 6 minutes. The quiz was timed, and participants had up to 10 minutes to complete it.
Participants were randomly assigned to either a no-interference, active texting, or vibration condition after arriving at the research laboratory. In the no-interference condition, phones were left in a bin away from sight during the procedure. In the active-texting condition, participants were given an iPhone to use and instructed to briefly reply to messages sent by a researcher while they were reading the article. In the vibration condition, participants left their phone in a bin away from sight, but vibrations (mimicking phone alerts) were audible approximately every 60 seconds.
Participants also completed a brief measure of generalized or “trait” anxiety as part of the study, along with ratings of overwhelm, stress, and anxiety in the present moment. Lastly, they completed a self-rating questionnaire about overall time spent on their phones and particular patterns of heavy use – namely, whether you use your phone right before going to sleep.
Key Findings:
There was a clear pattern of poorer test scores for the vibration as well as the active-texting conditions, compared to no phone interference. Intriguingly, participants took even longer to complete the quiz in the vibration condition, compared to the texting condition in which they were actively answering messages. Stress and anxiety during the study did not differ across conditions, but there was a trend toward less overwhelm for the no-interference condition.
The authors interpret the main findings to show that internally originating distractions – as when we wonder and worry about a notification we can’t see or respond to – are as important to consider as external distractions, such as actually being engrossed in messaging. For both the active texting and audible notifications, there were clear negative impacts on retention of what a student is reading during study time, with poorer quiz scores across the board and longer time to finish the quiz.
Choice Quote from the Article:
[A]ctive smartphone use is not necessary to impair performance—even smartphone notifications are disruptive (Clayton et al., 2015; Fitz et al., 2019; Kimet al., 2016; Stothart et al., 2015). Understanding the extent to which a smartphone is disruptive in these ways has been examined in prior research, and the current project extends this work by directly comparing performance in these unique contexts. Specifically, participants were presented with an academic task, and their attentional focus was challenged by intermittent smartphone vibrations or by the necessity to respond to incoming text messages. Both conditions were compared to a no interference (control) condition. Performance and time on a subsequent assessment were measured. This work has important practical implications for learning inside and outside the classroom, including how instructors present their technology policies and how students store their devices while in class or studying.
Why it Matters:
The article begins with an outstanding concise review of the research to date on distraction, smartphones and learning. For those who are already familiar with the field, the findings they synthesize are perhaps not surprising, but it all serves as a good refresher on or introduction to the ways in which smartphones distract us – not just when we are on them, but when we can’t be on them. I also found it intriguing how the authors characterize internal interference and intrusions as a form of multitasking – something we stop to deal with, at the cost of whatever main task we’re trying to get through.
The article also drives home the real catch-22 for teachers trying to create sensible technology policies. Preventing students from answering notifications seems to trigger mind wandering that impedes learning. But letting students do whatever they want on their phones impedes performance too.
It does give a realistic look at what may happen if students stash phones away but leave them in vibration mode (or still get notifications via smart watches and the like). I think it’s not too much of a stretch to think that visible notifications (e.g., from a phone that’s on silent but is face up) would produce a similar pattern of intrusive thoughts and distraction.
It occurs to me that the connection to anxiety and well-being could be a good hook to draw students in to the topic, as long as we are careful not to over-sell these findings (which were inconclusive or absent in the present study). Many students have heard that they shouldn’t text in class for various reasons, but fewer will have considered the implications for their emotional health and overall levels of stress. Perhaps this article could be a good reading for psychology or study skills courses where students are introduced to research on distraction and learning.
The big take-home for policy, as I see it, is this: Forbidding cell phones, without also doing something to curb audible and visible notifications, is a recipe for disaster. I am always an advocate for sharing these kinds of policy and practice decisions with students, or at the very least, explaining the rationale for them. In this case, students should not only put the phones away, they should completely power them down or silence them. The authors also make the point that regular breaks – accompanied by a quick bout of checking one’s phone - can help fight phone-related problems of all kinds. It strikes me that this could be good advice to couple with introducing students to the Pomodoro technique.
Most Relevant For:
Faculty; instructional designers; student success program leaders and staff.
Limitations, Caveats, and Nagging Questions:
Like most other studies on phone use, this one used self-report to get at how often participants used their phones and patterns of usage. I am skeptical about how precise these measures are, given that in general, people are poor at retrospectively estimating time and frequency of everyday activities. There’s also the fact that the typical things we do on phones tend to mask the passage of time (e.g., losing track of how long you’ve spent on TikTok, social media that’s engineered to keep you there as long as possible), further complicating the goal of measuring actual usage patterns. I’d suggest not to take those measures at face value; in the end, these subsidiary analyses turned out not to reveal much as far as who is more disrupted by phone use during learning.
As the authors acknowledge, this study can’t say much more about the exact nature of the mental processes that go on when you’re dealing with a notification you can’t respond to. It’s not a stretch, I think, to chalk up the reduced performance to distracting internal thoughts, but these weren’t directly measured.
If you liked this article, you might also appreciate:
Aagaard, J. (2015). Media multitasking, attention, and distraction: A critical discussion. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 14(4). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-014-9375-x
Calderwood, C., Ackerman, P. L., & Conklin, E. M. (2014). What else do college students “do” while studying? An investigation of multitasking. Computers and Education, 75(2014), 19–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2014.02.004
Gannon, K. (n.d.). Let’s ban the classroom technology ban. http://www.thetattooedprof.com/2016/05/15/lets-ban-the-classroom-technology-ban/ [Blog post]
Glass, A. L., & Kang, M. (2019). Dividing attention in the classroom reduces exam performance. Educational Psychology, 39(3), 395–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2018.1489046
Junco, R. (2012). In-class multitasking and academic performance. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(6), 2236–2243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.06.031
Lang, J. (2020). Distracted: Why students can't focus and what you can do about it. Basic Books
Loh, K. K., Tan, B. Z. H., & Lim, S. W. H. (2016). Media multitasking predicts video-recorded lecture learning performance through mind wandering tendencies. Computers in Human Behavior, 63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.06.030
McCoy, B. R. (2013). Digital distractions in the classroom: Student classroom use of digital devicees for non-class related purposes. Journal of Media Education, 4(4), 5–12. Retrieved from http://en.calameo.com/read/000091789af53ca4e647f
Miller, M.D. (2022). Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning, and the Science of Memory in a Wired World. West Virginia University Press.
Miller, M.D., Doherty, J.J., Butler, N., & Coull, W. (2020). Changing counterproductive beliefs about attention, memory, and multitasking: Impacts of a brief, fully online module. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 34, 710-723.
Seymour, C.I., Erdynast, E., & Miller, M.D. (2020) Gender predicts beliefs and knowledge about attention among college students. College Teaching, DOI: 10.1080/87567555.2020.1853026
Stothart, C., Mitchum, A., & Yehnert, C. (2015). The attentional cost of receiving a cell phone notification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41(4). https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000100
Wei, F.-Y. F., Wang, Y. K., & Klausner, M. (2012). Rethinking college students’ self-regulation and sustained attention: Does text messaging during class influence cognitive learning? Communication Education, 61(3), 185–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2012.67275
File under: attention; distraction; personal technology; smartphones; classroom technology policies; study strategies; student anxiety; mental health