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> Interestingly, the research didn’t show significant improvements in cognitive ability; the phone ban group showed a modest 3% boost in working memory, and the
by card_zero 2y ago
> Interestingly, the research didn’t show significant improvements in cognitive ability; the phone ban group showed a modest 3% boost in working memory, and there were no improvements in sustained attention. Researchers suggest that these results might mean that changes in cognitive ability could take longer than the study period of 21 days to materialise.
Notice how they had decided beforehand what they were going to find out, and are making an excuse here for not finding part of it.
- techNoob123 2y agoyes they had a hypothesis. that’s how science works. You left out the other benefits the study found. those benefits seem to be quite significant. In fact, I will go as far as to say that sleep has been well associated with student performance. You remark comes off as disingenuous and not ready for serious review.
- card_zero 2y ago[flagged]
- j45 2y agoCognitive ability may have been growing as it does.. just been allocated elsewhere (scrolling). Sleep is the real superpower.
- daemonologist 2y agoCommonly known as the scientific method.
- card_zero 2y agoIn what way?
- it_citizen 2y agoHypothesize then experiment
- card_zero 2y agoUh-huh. You have a conjecture, you test it, and then you say "looks like reality didn't match our conjecture, the conjecture must be wrong." Except here they got a negative result and said "reality must be wrong". It's a determined effort to find specific results.
- drawkward 2y agoScience denialism will send us back to tbe dark ages.
- card_zero 2y agoYou'd better not do any, then. Were you thinking of it?
- eimrine 2y ago> You have a conjecture, you test it, and then you say "looks like reality didn't match our conjecture, the conjecture must be wrong." The time is also the part of the conjecture.
- 8note 2y agothats also a part of the scientific method. you dont believe the results you get, so you keep designing an collecting data from more experiments until you cant deny it anymore
- supersrdjan 2y agoAren't in this case they saying that their experiment might have been the wrong one, and that next time they have to do a different kind of test that takes a longer time span into consideration? They acknowledge the result that no changes in cognitive abilities take place within 21 days, and then from there make the next conjecture that such changes might happen later, which would require a different kind of test?
- 0xRusty 2y agoYou start with a hypothesis and then you test it.
- card_zero 2y agoAnd then you find it was wrong, and you keep it, and make protestations.
- rrr_oh_man 2y agoI’ve seen the same thing in many A/B tests
- dijksterhuis 2y agothey found it was invalid in the short term, for this particular study. the long term is still an open question. which is why they’re pointing that out. saying “we thought this would happen, it didn’t, but maybe there’s just something to do with our study that meant we disnt see the result that confirms our hypothesis” is a perfectly valid conclusion.
- ChrisLTD 2y agoI’d humbly suggest “protestation” isn’t the right word here
- bdangubic 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jader201 2y agoI’m not a scientist in this field, but I would have been very surprised to have seen a difference in cognitive ability this quickly. I’ve always felt that we wouldn’t recover from the negative impacts of phone addiction very quickly, if ever, after several years of addiction to doom scrolling, social media feeds, and the short bursts of 10-second videos. I wish more real research in this field was being done, so that we could have some solid evidence — and proper warnings against — the negative impacts of phone addiction. Until then, kids — and their parents — are left with the unfortunate decision between phone addition, and social ostracism.
- Liquix 2y ago> left with the unfortunate decision between phone addition, and social ostracism. This line of thinking perpetuates the problem. More people getting addicted does not mean addiction is a prerequisite to live a full life. It's never been more important to aggressively curtail phone use – and make unpopular decisions that your kids will thank you for later – than it is now.
- jader201 2y agoI’m not sure if you have kids, but I’m not sure making the choice to ostracize your kids is one they’d thank you for later. And, certainly not all kids would. It very much depends on the kid / the impact said ostracism would have.
- acron0 2y agoThis is why it needs implementing systemically, and not ad hoc. If no one has social media, no one is being ostracised. If only one person opts out then yes, they risk being ostracised.
- jader201 2y ago100% agreed, which was my point above about studies being done to prove the negative impacts, so everyone could actually get on board, instead of it being done ad hoc. It took public shaming to start to reduce addiction to cigarettes, after we were able to show how bad they were for you.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- carlmr 2y agoApart from whether the days are enough or not to wean off a long-standing addiction. Maybe a 3% boost in working memory has compounding effects over time as well. You can't commit to long term memory what you can't keep in working memory long enough. You can't think about complex things if you don't have the working memory capacity. If you always have 3% more working memory you might accumulate more knowledge after a while. Like alcohol doesn't delete your brain, but you have serious memory deficits if you drink every day for years on end.
- Tenoke 2y ago>If you always have 3% more working memory you might accumulate more knowledge after a while. Or you might accumulate way less knowledge because you don't have a phone to get information from and are getting say 300% less information overall despite retaining 3% more of what you get.
- riedel 2y agoThis typically good science. You have hypothesis and test it, rather than doing an intervention and reporting every random thing that happened. Although I agree in this case, the alternative hypothesis seems a bit lame, rather than adopting the null hypothesis. On the other hand I guess that more sleep could have some effect on cognitive development in the long run.
- IshKebab 2y agoYes but their conclusion is "well our hypothesis is probably still right, we just didn't look hard enough" rather than "maybe it doesn't have a significant effect".
- TOMDM 2y agoWell yes, that's just decent Bayesian rigor. Previous studies have set a prior of x% confidence, you see evidence to the contrary, you update to some x-y%. Given the volume of research on sleep, it probably takes more evidence, even if it's your own study to throw that out.
- IshKebab 2y agoAre there previous studies that have shown smartphone use impairs cognitive ability?
- II2II 2y agoYou can look at that statement in a couple of different ways. Yes, experimental bias is one of them. The other is saying: we didn't see this effect, so we need to do longer term studies to see if it does exist. Regardless, that statement is a good thing. It acknowledges a social bias towards the effect of smartphones. It doesn't give room for people to imply a result based upon that bias. On the surface, at least, it doesn't indicate that data was fudged to reach a particular result.
- n8henrie 2y ago"Might mean" is a far cry from "our hypothesis is probably still right." This type of speculation is commonplace -- even expected -- in the discussion section of an article. Not much different than the lame duck "further research is needed to..."
- blitzar 2y ago[flagged]
- IshKebab 2y agoI think you might have responded to the wrong comment. card_zero's reading comprehension appears to be fine. I'm not sure about yours though - the study didn't find any effect of phone use on cognition so why would time without a phone help reading comprehension?
- flexie 2y agoBy now, most schools in Denmark are banning phones during school hours. My kids' school did it two years ago. I have no idea if it has improved my kids' "cognitive skills", and frankly I don't care that much about their academic level. They are kids. They should run around, play and be happy, and then they will learn what they need. As a parent it's wonderful to know that the kids have this 5-7 hour break from the screens. Just wonderful.
- alkonaut 2y agoSomeone realized it's not a good idea to hand a bunch of teens cameras, give them unlimited possibility to bully eachother anonymously and then force them to share a space for 8 hours every day, including changing clothes and showering for gym class. In hindsight it seems obvious.
- mixmastamyk 2y agoIs showering at school still a thing? I've seen it supposedly in the movies, but we never did at our california school in the 90s.
- mattbee 2y agoI think that's the norm in UK secondaries too. My 11yo is allowed to take his phone to school for but policy is it stays switched off, in the locker, until the end of the school day.
- kwakubiney 2y agoSo essentially almost every form of research?
- lugu 2y agoWhat is wrong with that? Isn't it how science works: you make an hypothesis and test it.
- Xelbair 2y agobut you conform to the experimental results. you can suggest further experimentation to prove another point, but this is different from assuming a priori that effect WILL happen. The issue is not in the idea itself, but how it is phrased.
- bilbo0s 2y agoThey did suggest a new experiment, one lasting longer than 21 days to test their hypothesis. Hypothesis -> proposed experiment -> results -> questions evoked by results -> new hypothesis -> new proposed experiment MOST importantly, they didn’t fake any results and went where the data took them. This is the kind of science that has been falling out of fashion for the last few decades in favor of researchers who work based on other principles.
- subroutine 2y agoThey could have included the obvious (but probably unwanted) alternative hypothesis: Researchers suggest that these results might mean that changes in cognitive ability could take longer than the study period of 21 days to materialize, or access to devices has a positive effect on attention offsetting the effects of sleep on attention. It's probably unlikely but it is an obvious possibility.
- bilbo0s 2y agoSo is the possibility that attention is an emergent genetic trait. There are many, many alternative explanations. You are lamenting the exclusion of your preferred alternative explanation, but the researchers need to choose one and look further along that branch. The idea of open science is that other teams would be free to explore plausible alternative hypotheses. Some team might explore yours. Another might dig into my idea about the behavior’s relationship to genetics. And so on. This is the method by which we move ourselves forward. And it’s easy to see how that effort is hampered by the practice of data tampering and other shenanigans. Which this team did not engage in, even when part of there hypothesis wasn’t supported by their data. This team deserves a “Bravo!”
- jpace121 2y agoThat’s a very uncharitable interpretation of what they wrote, and goes outside of how what they wrote is supposed to be interpreted. The researchers are not claiming that cognitive ability changes would definitely take longer than 21 days to appear, they’re suggesting that that is the next thing to test.
- drawkward 2y ago>Notice how they had decided beforehand what they were going to find out, and are making an excuse here for not finding part of it. You are alleging this without evidence, and have no credibility to base your claims on.