Junichiro Kawahara, a specially appointed associate professor at Hokkaido University, collaborated with Mr. Shigehiro Ito at Chukyo University to measure the effect of a mobile terminal placed nearby without using it on attention.As a result, it turned out that attention was hindered even by the mobile phone of another person who turned off the screen.In particular, people who do not normally use mobile phones tend to have a stronger effect.
There are many accidents that occur when people are not paying attention to other things due to "texting while walking".However, in daily life, it is said that people sometimes pay attention to mobile terminals even if they do not use them, such as replying to e-mails and notifying SNS.In this study, we examined whether the attention was impaired by simply placing the mobile terminal without actually using it, and examined the relationship between this effect and the frequency of use.
Experiment participants were randomly assigned to two groups, smartphone conditions and control conditions, and verified.Under the smartphone conditions, the experimenter's smartphone was placed beside the PC monitor, and the experiment participants were asked to search for the target character from a large number of characters on the monitor, and the search time was measured.Under the control conditions, a notepad of the same size was placed instead of the smartphone, and the same experiment was conducted.After that, we asked all the participants about their usual smartphone usage frequency and attachment.
As a result, it took longer to search for a target under smartphone conditions than under control conditions.It is probable that this is because the attention was automatically turned to just because the smartphone was placed.However, it was also found that this effect occurs strongly in people who use it infrequently, and people who regularly use smartphones are more likely to notice the target on the side where the smartphone is placed.As a result, there are individual differences in the ability to ignore or pay attention to the existence of smartphones.
