Exploring the Impact of Smartphone Addiction in Prospective Memory

Abstract

As smartphones have rapidly emerged as a ubiquitous and indispensable technology, there are increasing indications that user dependence on smartphones and associated behaviors could be considered a form of addiction. Intensive interaction with smartphones has a significant impact on user thought patterns, cognitive focus and memory. Prospective memory is the mechanism which allows us to remember to do something at some future time or to remember some future event. Prospective memory plays an important role in our daily lives, acting as a mental calendar which organizes awareness of future events and thus allows people to plan accordingly. Continued reduced performance of prospective memory may cause us brain degradation. Intensive smartphone use creates long-term distractions, and thus reduces prospective memory use. Using a Smartphone Addiction Inventory questionnaire, followed by dual-task and electroencephalography (EEG) experiments to measure prospective memory performance, we found that some correlation between smartphone addiction and deterioration of prospective memory.