Smartphones and Distracted Drivers

It’s frustrating to public safety officials that there is so little publicly available data on the role that smartphones play in distracting drivers ...

Procrastinators Helped by Using ‘Monk Mode’

Cameron Perrin, a 26-year-old software engineer, talks about his experience with the productivity hack known as "monk mode:"

As a person who ...

Finland Promotes Silence as Natural Resource

One icy night in March 2010, 100 marketing experts piled into the Sea Horse Restaurant in Helsinki. They had the modest goal of making a remote and medium-sized ...

Are You Easily Distracted?

Do you find yourself distracted? Well, you are not alone. A recent survey on distractions in the workplace found that employees experience an average ...

Professor Challenges Students to Give Up Cellphones for a Week

It's old school in Jacob Dannenberg's college dorm room. He uses an alarm clock to wake him up, handwritten notes for reminders, and an actual ...

Medieval Musicians Served as Watchmen Over the City

During the late-Medieval period, London had a strange law on the books—each entry gate into the city had to keep a musician on duty. This could ...

New Year’s Resolution: Rediscover Boredom in the Smartphone Age

Smartphones have changed the way we inhabit public space and more specifically, how we fill our time while waiting. Consequently, day-dreaming, thinking, ...

The Smartphone Stack

You’re out with some friends having a nice dinner. But one has been talking on his phone for the last ten minutes, and a second is managing to fork ...

Ways Your Smartphone Is Changing You

Tony Reinke’s book, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You, makes explicit what many of us feel bubbling under the surface: Quietly, subtly, our phones ...

TikTokers’ Attention Span Maxes at 60 Seconds

TikTokers have remarkably short attention spans. Nearly 50 percent of users surveyed by TikTok said videos longer than a minute long were stressful; a ...