Even the Taliban thinks phones are making us unproductive – and I can't help but agree
Supposedly, the mere presence of a mobile phone is distracting, but what can you do if you need one for work?
The Taliban has had enough of smartphones in the workplace so much so that it is smashing up devices belonging to its own members.
And this isn't just about the typical concerns that the internet is immoral. It's well known that Taliban leadership has repeatedly tried to restrict access to the World Wide Web. But the focus here is specifically on the smartphones themselves.
An unnamed government employee is quoted in The Guardian as saying, "About two months ago, they said not to bring your mobile phones to the office. Me and a few colleagues didn't take it seriously. They confiscated them, and after we made a fuss about it, they smashed our phones".
Why? Well, according to the report, written by Zahra Nader, the editor-in-chief of the Zan Times, the Taliban is worried that its people are online too much, consumed by their phones, and, as a result, not working. Allegedly, the Taliban believes that smartphones don't belong at work. And they are not the only government that is coming to this conclusion.
The reputation of the smartphone has taken a bit of a hammering of late. There's been a large focus on social media, infinite scrolling, and protecting children. But there is a growing community of adults online (ironically) looking at ways to reduce the use of smartphones, either to protect their mental health or, like the Taliban, to be more productive.
Now, many of us have simply deleted apps that cause distractions. I myself have written about the dangers of using Slack at night. And there are also lots of people going for somewhat retro options – dumb phones, actual cameras, iPods – in a bid to claim back their attention spans.
There are also more modern methods on the rise, including Brick, a tiny box that you can tap your phone on to lock you out of those troublesome apps. There are also smartphones with limits, such as the Balance Phone (review coming soon), which is simply a phone with the bare essentials (camera, banking, email). The company has drawn a line on what apps help and which ones don't, using the infinite scroll as the deciding factor (although, technically, business email is an infinite scroll).
How did it get so bad? Do we need to rethink BYOD initiatives for the sake of business productivity? Should we have distraction-free smartphones or Bricks around the office? Or is that asking too much of our already busy IT teams and their stretched budgets? My hand twitches thinking about these – it wants to pull up Google and ask.
The situation is so bad that the mere presence of your phone is distracting. Comedian Josh Widdicombe joked that once he used Brick to block social media, he still used his phone absentmindedly, scrolling through Uber to find out what cities it operated in.
Back in 2017, a consumer research study called Brain Drain: The mere presence of one's own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity suggested that cognitive function was impaired by the phone being in reach. It conducted two experiments that showed even when users avoided the temptation to check their phones, the mere presence of the device negatively affected cognitive performance, specifically available working memory capacity.
What can be done about this? Unfortunately, very little. The phone is a tool for business, and apps keep us connected to colleagues, tasks, clients, and so on. It's also an important part of the verification process – I can't get into my laptop without it. But there is a growing movement, both anti-social media and anti-phone. And it might not be long before we see IT departments and businesses taking a different approach to the phones employees use.
