Mind Wandering in a Smartphone World: The Impact of Pervasive Smartphone Usage on Mind Wandering and Attentional Restoration

Abstract

Mind-wandering is a cognitive process that often occurs during idleness and rest. Nowadays, due to the rise of the smartphone’s popularity, people tend to spend most of their free time on their mobile devices. Previous research has evaluated the primarily negative impact of both mind-wandering and smartphone usage during attention and performance tasks. The aim of this work was to investigate the impact of smartphone usage and mind-wandering during periods of rest on one’s ability to maintain attention during a subsequent task. In this study, participants (N = 129) completed an attentional network test, under two conditions: (a) without breaks between test sections and (b) with two breaks, which they spent either using their smartphones or letting their minds wander. Results indicate that the smartphone break led to higher levels of mind-wandering during the task, compared to other conditions. Moreover, the smartphone break improved performance and reduced reaction time during the task. The present findings confirm the complexity of the relationship between attention and mind-wandering, as well as between attention and smartphone usage. Future studies should address these findings and reexamine previous assumptions that mind-wandering and attention, and smartphone usage and attention are anticorrelated processes.