Week 6 Lecture: Laptop and CS Separation
What "brain drain" means here, why it isn't a willpower failure, and what Thursday's lab replaces a screen with
- Week
- 6
- Date
- 30 March 2027
- Lab
- Laptop and CS Separation
- Reflection due
- 20 April 2027
Introduction#
Everyone place their laptop and phone away right now — no comment needed. The mere presence of a phone, not its use, appears to measurably affect how well you can pay attention. Today’s scope is that attention and presence effect only, not screen-time habits broadly.
Definitions#
- Screen-free time (noun)
- a scheduled period during which no screen is consulted, checked, or kept within reach "just in case."
- Hobby (noun)
- a recurring activity undertaken for enjoyment, not assessment, and not involving a compiler.
Body#
- The mere-presence effect. Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017) found participants with phones on the desk — even face-down, even switched off — performed worse on memory and attention tasks than those with phones in another room; the effect scaled with how noticeable the phone was.
Check-in: According to this study, does turning your phone off remove the effect?
- Why this isn’t a willpower failure. This is a measurable effect of where the phone sits, not a personal failing — the same no-blame reading this course applies to Week 8’s incident reports.
Check-in: If the effect is about where the phone sits, what does that suggest about fixing it with willpower alone?
- Designing an enforcement mechanism. Where the laptop physically goes matters more than deciding not to use it — another room, not just another desk. Name a device-free window with a start time and an end time, decide in advance what happens if the laptop comes back before the window ends, and allow exactly one exception: a genuine, already-known deadline, named ahead of time, not invented in the moment.
Check-in: What's the difference between 'I won't check my phone' and an actual enforcement mechanism?
In-lecture activity#
In-lecture activity
Referring back to the prompt at the start of the lecture: a quick, honest show of hands — who noticed an urge to check their phone, or to take out their laptop?
Conclusion#
Screens cost attention even unused — this is the actual mechanism behind the course’s own no-screens-in-labs policy, not just a rule for its own sake. You now have a real mechanism to design, not just a rule to try to keep. Coming up: this week’s lab (the analogue brainstorm and game).
This week’s reflection, due 12:00 Tuesday of week 7 — after the teaching break, not during it: name one hour this week the laptop stayed closed, and what filled it instead.
References
- Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017). Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One's Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2), 140–154. Phones on the desk — even face-down, even switched off — reduced memory and attention performance versus phones in another room; the effect scaled with how noticeable the phone was.
Teaching team
- Cosima Adjei — convenor