**TL; DR : Smartphones are not only making us less attentive, they're also dangerously addictive** Alongside most people nowadays, I am addicted to my phone. It is constantly with me, and when I don’t have it, I often feel lost as to what to do, and feel a surge of worry when I think I have misplaced it. I use my phone for everything: to keep in contact with my friends and family, for work, and it holds all of my important memories. However, being this dependant on our mobiles is not healthy. Not only is it making us less attentive, which is one of the many reasons why phones are [banned in school classrooms] (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/18/research-shows-that-cell-phones-distract-students--so-france-banned-them-in-school--.html), they are also dangerously addictive – we can’t seem to function without them.  In a co-study by [Jeremy Marty-Dugas] (https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2017-40489-001.pdf?auth_token=57846cc4087971d73be0d031de135a4f761431a5&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fpsycnet.apa.org%2Frecord%2F2017-40489-001), it was found that 27% of all auto-accidents were caused by smartphone use whilst driving in the United States. Smartphones have become a secondary task that we use whilst operating our primary tasks, making our attention divided. If we apply this theory to our working lives, how is it possible to perform to our full capacity whilst using smartphones? Just think of our potential achievements if we didn’t have this secondary distraction. Whilst I think it is hard to phase smartphone use out of our lives completely, I think we should be making important steps to making ourselves less dependant on them.

**TL;DR Smartphones do our menial thinking so that we can focus our smarts on more important stuff** • Smartphones can remember information for us so that we don’t have to. Bill Nye the Science Guy thinks that this can make us smarter because our brains don’t get clogged up with banal information, and we can therefore put more mental energy into the important stuff, like [critical, analytical, and lateral thinking](https://gizmodo.com/bill-nye-the-science-guy-dont-worry-your-phone-isnt-m-5497055) • Smartphones allow us constant access to knowledge through the Internet. [A study by Elon University in 2010](https://www.elon.edu/u/imagining/wp-content/uploads/sites/964/2019/06/2010survey.pdf) shows that 76% of scientists agreed that by 2020 our use of the Internet would have enhanced human intelligence. Using the Internet is not only a great way to learn new facts (and opinions!), but also develops cognitive processes: using a search engine improves creative thinking; skim reading advances our intake of information; and the sheer amount of contradictory material on the Internet forces us to read critically. All of these skills are paramount to human intelligence.

**Smart phones are obviating our need to remember anything** Is memory a feature of intelligence, and if so what practical effects do we see from its loss, and the loss of its use culturally? Note, too, that this question of what technology does to thinking has been around since Socrates, who refused to write anything down because knowledge had to be internalised (not read, and therefore taken second-hand). We had exactly the same conversations around the time of Guttenberg's invention of the printing press. Prof. Frances Yates wrote a wonderful book on the [Memory in the Middle Ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Memory), and its function as a signifier of and tool of wisdom.

**TL;DR - Remembering is only one form of intelligence. Smart Phones can make us smarter in many ways, but we are very reliant on them** To add to the great points already made, there are ways in which smart phones reduce parts of our intelligence. A huge factor is through our memory. My grandparents will remember their home phone number when they were younger, yet I can’t recall my friends numbers or my family addresses. Our phones have freed up our memory, which in someways is good, and others not so. The University of Texas reported a study that our brain power is [significantly reduced] (https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-athletes-way/201706/are-smartphones-making-us-stupid) even when our phone is next to us and faced down. I think that it is slightly wishful thinking that our phones free up space for more important things to remember. I think personally more people are sat watching tiktoks rather than splitting the atom. Don’t misunderstand, our phones allow us to expand our knowledge through access to the internet and social medias, however the phone itself, as an object may be less impactful on our intelligence.

**TL;DR** - **Smartphones are making us socially dumb.** It has become almost force of habit now to check our phones whenever we have a moment to spare. For example, if you go out for a drink with a friend and they go to the loo, it goes without saying that you take that opportunity to go on your phone. This may be checking your messages, social media or the news until your friend comes back. This in itself is fine. Smartphones have enabled us to stay up to date with the wider world with considerable ease. _However_, there are increasingly signs that smartphones are forcing their way into all forms of social interaction. The example here is likely something we have likely all experienced, namely trying to have a conversation with someone who is constantly on their phone. It is exhausting because you feel like you never have that person's full attention. Sadly, this is increasingly becoming the norm. In almost any communal setting, there are instances of people sitting together, not interacting but just looking at their phones. It seems that people are losing the ability to interact with each other because smartphones are distracting us.