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Mobile telephone use is associated with changes in cognitive function in young adolescents

No Effects Found

Abramson MJ, Benke GP, Dimitriadis C, Inyang IO, Sim MR, Wolfe RS, Croft RJ · 2009

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Heavy mobile phone use may train teenage brains for fast but inaccurate thinking, regardless of radiation exposure.

Plain English Summary

Summary written for general audiences

Researchers studied 317 Australian teenagers to see if mobile phone use affected their thinking abilities. They found that teens who made more phone calls had faster but less accurate responses on cognitive tests, with poorer working memory and learning performance. Importantly, the same effects occurred with text messaging, suggesting the changes came from phone usage habits rather than radiofrequency radiation exposure.

Study Details

The MoRPhEUS study was conducted i to examine the association of mobile telephone use and the cognitive function in young adolescents.

We recruited 317, 7th grade students (144 boys, 173 girls, median age 13 years) from 20 schools arou...

The accuracy of working memory was poorer, reaction time for a simple learning task shorter, associa...

Overall, mobile phone use was associated with faster and less accurate responding to higher level cognitive tasks. These behaviours may have been learned through frequent use of a mobile phone.

Cite This Study
Abramson MJ, Benke GP, Dimitriadis C, Inyang IO, Sim MR, Wolfe RS, Croft RJ (2009). Mobile telephone use is associated with changes in cognitive function in young adolescents Bioelectromagnetics. 30(8):678-686, 2009.
Show BibTeX
@article{mj_2009_mobile_telephone_use_is_2735,
  author = {Abramson MJ and Benke GP and Dimitriadis C and Inyang IO and Sim MR and Wolfe RS and Croft RJ},
  title = {Mobile telephone use is associated with changes in cognitive function in young adolescents},
  year = {2009},
  doi = {10.1002/bem.20534},
  url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bem.20534},
}

Quick Questions About This Study

Researchers studied 317 Australian teenagers to see if mobile phone use affected their thinking abilities. They found that teens who made more phone calls had faster but less accurate responses on cognitive tests, with poorer working memory and learning performance. Importantly, the same effects occurred with text messaging, suggesting the changes came from phone usage habits rather than radiofrequency radiation exposure.