The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos The Science of Attention and Distraction

Your smartphone might be making you miserable and you might not even realize it. These machines are technological marvels, but our addiction to them is causing us to miss out on the things happening all around us. Dr. Laurie explores the science of inattentional blindness—our brain’s remarkable ability to miss things that are right in front of us—and how our phones impact our already limited attention. Psychologist Liz Dunn, whose research shows that even the mere presence of a phone during social gatherings can reduce our enjoyment of them, and science journalist Catherine Price, founder of Screen/Life Balance and author of How To Break Up With Your Phone, explain the science of attention and distraction, and provide useful tips for mindfully using technology.

Experts Mentioned:
– Christopher Chabris, Professor & Director of Decision Sciences, Geisinger Research Institute
– Daniel Simons, Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
– Brian Scholl, Professor of Psychology, Yale University
– Brian’s Lab Research Projects
– Elizabeth Dunn, Professor of Psychology, University of British Columbia

Resources Mentioned:
– The Inivisble Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Chrisopher Chabris and Daniel Simons (2010)
– “Gorillas in our Midst: Sustained Inattentional Blindness for Dynamic Events,” (Perception, 1999)
– “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind,” (Science, 2010)
– “No Time to Kill: How Smartphone is Pushing Chewing Gum out of Fashion,” (The Economic Times, 2017)
– “Cell Phone Use Latency in a Midwestern USA University Population,” (Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science, 2017)

Related episodes of “The Happiness Lab”:
– “Good Screens and Bad Screens”
– “Tame Those Devices: 10 Tips to Achieve Digital Balance”
– “How to Kick Bad Habits (and Start Good Ones)”
– “Reconnect with the Moment“