The primary outcome was self-reported cognitive disability, defined as “serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions.”
can we blame smartphones for this?
No idea, but it’s I’d think so they’re one of the reasons.
As for me, I’m trying to use smartphone much less nowadays. However, I find it difficult because I see that people expect me to respond to their messages asap. Moreover, in my bubble there are more and more people using chat apps and less and less people calling and answering calls and/or willing to meet, not even speaking about initiating meetings. It’s just difficult not to use messagins apps + for me personally it’s sad to have to use it, because I feel alone without presence of a human being.Consider trying Beeper. Works with many different chat services allowing you to use only one app to chat. It works really well.
I like it because it feels less stimulating to only use one app and I don’t have any exposure to the social media components of the original apps.
If you’re too fearful to think straight, sure. But I suggest honesty instead of denialism. This seems like mostly a result of the ongoing COVID pandemic
i was looking at
https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000214226
2015/16 is where it looks to take off
Doesn’t look like it to me. Almost all the charts have 2015/16 close to prior years, but in a severe upswing. After 2020 we’re far out of the previous range, with still no downswing. But the article did say 2016 too, so it’s not you being dumb or anything
really one of those studies if it had been started a few years earlier could have made all the difference
Yeah. I will say, after looking at the data more, the youngest demographic does make it look like smartphones could be a bigger part than I realized. That’s very counterintuitive to me, since smartphones are interactive and great at accessing information, while we had TVs forever before that
Results
From 2013 to 2023, a total of 4,507,061 responses were included in the analysis. Apart from analyses focusing on strata of age, all estimates of cognitive disability were age-adjusted. Most respondents were aged 18–39 years (36.8%), identified as non-Hispanic White (60.9%), and had completed at least a high school education (87.3%). The age-adjusted self-reported cognitive disability prevalence in the United States rose from 5.3% (95% CI 5.1%–5.4%) in 2013 to 7.4% (95% CI 7.2%–7.6%) in 2023, with statistically significant increases beginning in 2016. The prevalence of cognitive disability among younger adults aged 18–39 years nearly doubled, increasing from 5.1% (95% CI 4.8%–5.3%) to 9.7% (95% CI 9.2%–10.2%), making this age group the primary driver of the overall rise in cognitive disability in the United States.
Discussion
The disproportionate growth in cognitive disability among younger adults seems to be the primary driver of the overall national trend. These findings warrant further investigation, given their potential long-term implications for population health, workforce productivity, and health care systems.An article about the study: https://onepercentrule.substack.com/p/under-40s-declining-memory
