The Reminder On Your Smartphone Could Help Improve Your Memory

Many people who have to juggle their time between work and family use their smartphones as their primary means of communication. And while a lot of the phone itself is often an inconvenience, we did find a neat feature that can help you out.

A recent study found that those who had a notification scheduled 15 minutes before taking something off your to-do list had improved memory retention. So if you want to make sure you remember what's on your list for the day, just try setting up this reminder on your phone.

(Image Source: Reviews.org)

Using smartphones could ameliorate memory by allowing consumers to free up memory for less important information. Numerous people believe that spending long periods of time on smartphones contributes to shiftlessness and obliviousness, but an experimental study by UCL experimenters suggests that this isn't the case.

The exploration, published in Journal of Experimental Psychology General, demonstrated that digital bias can ameliorate memory skills. People who use smartphones find them helpful in storing important information that they can then revert back to or be reminded of. In turn, this allows smartphone users to free up their memory to recall fresh, less important things.

Neuroscientists in the past have raised concerns over “ digital madness ” as a result of the overuse of technology. Still, this study doesn't come to the same conclusion. The findings show that using a digital device as external memory not only helps people to go back to the information saved into the device, but it also helps them to remember unsaved information too.

How do smartphones help memory?

Experimenters developed a memory task to be played on a touchscreen digital tablet or computer which 158 participants between the ages of 18 and 71 shared in. Participants were shown up to 12 numbered circles on the screen, and had to flash back to drag some of these to the left and some to the right. The number of circles that they flashed back to drag to the correct side determined their pay at the end of the trial.

One side was designated ‘ high value ’, meaning that remembering to drag a circle to this side was worth 10 times as important as  dragging a circle to the other ‘ low value ’ side. They performed this task 16 times and had to use their own memory to flash back on half of the trials and they were allowed to set monuments on the digital device for the other half.

The results showed that participants tended to use the digital bias to store the details of the high- value circles which bettered their memory for those circles was bettered by 18%. Also, their memory for low- value circles was also better by 27%, in people who had no set monuments for low- value circles. The study explosively suggests that smartphones ameliorate memory.

Researchers also found that people who used the digital device as a tool to store low-important information were more likely to make mistakes and perform worse in memory tasks. The best performance was registered when participants were able to use a mixture of both the digital bias and their own memory.

This is just one of many studies showing that smartphones can help us by acting as a “ cognitive prosthesis ”, which tech entrepreneur Nithin Coca describes as “ technology that improves our brain's performance, just like the cochlear implant does for those with impaired hearing. It's not just about efficiency, it's about effectiveness.”

How smartphones can help dementia patients

Smartphone use can be good for dementia patients as they help to stimulate the mind and boost cognitive abilities by 2.6-fold in this particular study.

Smartphones are increasingly being used in combination with a smartphone app called Lumosity and the researchers found that people with mild dementia (a score of 8 or less on the MMSE) who received the smartphone-based training on devices with Exynos 2200 improved their memory significantly more than those on a placebo (which didn't get training). Despite 20 sessions over 6 weeks, those using Lumosity were able to improve their memory by 5 points, while those on placebo saw no change. The improvements were still there after 6 months.

(Image Source: Medical Xpress)

“Smartphones can be a more powerful tool for assisting people with dementia than tablets,” said study lead author Dr. Robert Howard, “ It's important to remember that the technology we are using to make our lives easier could also have benefits for people with health problems.

The study was small-scale, with just 158 participants. However, the findings of this research still add to the growing body of evidence that show that these digital devices can actually be useful and beneficial in certain circumstances. In addition, it means that further research could focus on how smartphones can ameliorate memory in other age related health issues and with people who have specific medical conditions such as dementia or Alzheimer's disease.