When was the last time you opened your laptop mid-conversation, or brought your desktop computer to the dinner table? Ridiculous, right? But if you are like a large number of Americans, you have done both with your smartphone. 
 
 Less than a decade after the introduction of the first iPhone, more people reach for their smartphones first thing in the morning than reach for coffee, a toothbrush, or even the partner lying next to them in bed. During the day, with a smartphone in our pocket, we can check our email while spending time with our children just as easily as we can text a friend while at work. And regardless of what we are doing, many of us are bombarded by notifications of new messages, social media posts, breaking news, app updates, and more. 
 
 Anecdotal evidence suggests that this pervasiveness of smartphones is making us increasingly distracted and hyperactive. These presumed symptoms of constant digital stimulation also happen to characterize a well-known neurodevelopmental disorder: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. Could the pinging and dinging of our smartphones be afflicting even those of us not suffering from ADHD with some of that condition’s symptoms? As a behavioral scientist, I set out to test this idea in a well-controlled experiment. 
 
 Studying digital interruption 
 
 My colleagues and I recruited 221 millennials—students at the University of British Columbia—to participate in a two-week study. Importantly, these participants were recruited from the university’s general participant pool, rather than from a population of students diagnosed with ADHD. 
 
 During the first week, we asked half the participants to minimize phone interruptions by activating the “do-not-disturb” settings and keeping their phones out of sight and far from reach. We instructed the other half to keep their phone alerts on and their phones nearby whenever possible. 
 
 In the second week, we reversed the instructions: Participants who had used their phones’ “do-not-disturb” settings switched on phone alerts, and vice versa. The order in which we gave the instructions to each participant was randomly determined by a flip of a coin. This study design ensured that everything was kept constant, except for how frequently people were interrupted by their phones. We confirmed that people felt more interrupted by their phones when they had their phone alerts on, as opposed to having them off. 
 
 Measuring inattentiveness and hyperactivity 
 
 We measured inattentiveness and hyperactivity by asking participants to identify how frequently they had experienced 18 symptoms of ADHD over each of the two weeks. These items were based on the criteria for diagnosing ADHD in adults as specified by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V). 
 
 The inattentiveness questions covered a wide range of potential problems, such as making careless mistakes, forgetting to pay a bill, and having difficulty sustaining attention or listening to others. The hyperactivity questions were similarly broad, assessing things like fidgeting, feeling restless, excessive talking, and interrupting others. 
 
 The results were clear: more frequent phone interruptions made people less attentive and more hyperactive. 
 
 Because ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder with complex neurological and developmental causes, these findings in no way suggest that smartphones can cause ADHD. And our research certainly does not show that reducing phone interruptions can treat ADHD. But our findings do have implications for all of us who feel interrupted by our phones. 
 
 Smartphone ubiquity poses risks 
 
 These findings should concern us. Smartphones are the fastest-selling electronic gadget in history—in the 22 seconds it took to type this sentence, 1,000 smartphones were shipped to their new owners. Even if one of those 1,000 users became more likely to make a careless mistake, ignore a friend in the middle of a conversation, or space out during a meeting, smartphones could be harming the productivity, relationships, and well-being of millions. 
 
 As with all disorders, symptoms of ADHD form a continuum from the normal to the pathological. Our findings suggest that our incessant digital stimulation is contributing to an increasingly problematic deficit of attention in modern society. So consider silencing your phone—even when you are not in the movie theater. Your brain will thank you. 
 
 This post originally appeared at The Conversation. Follow @ConversationUS on Twitter. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com. ||||| It looks like phones might be giving us more than shitty posture. Photo by author 
 
 Read: Your Life Will Be Better if You Give Up Your Phone 
 
 The term "ADHD" is thrown around casually when talking about how distracted we are by technology, but now scientists have found a link between constant phone notifications, hyperactivity, and short attention spans in adults. 
 
 This is based on the findings of research published earlier this month by the University of British of Columbia, which looked at a group of 221 young people in an experimental distraction setting. The group spent one week with phone notifications on vibrate and phones within reach, and another week with phone notifications on silent while their phones were away. Throughout these periods, researchers measured the productivity and anxiety levels of each individual. 
 
 During the week with constant notifications, the group reported a higher level of distraction and anxiousness than they did when their notifications were shut off. The study group also complained about inattentiveness and boredom. None of the individuals studied had actually been diagnosed with ADHD before. 
 
 Lead researcher Kostadin Kushlev told VICE that his team hypothesized the results could have gone either way—acknowledging the possibility that shutting off notifications might cause people to check their phone more out of a feeling of uneasiness, or worry about missing a message or email. This, of course, didn't happen: Silence actually made it easier for people to focus on their work. 
 
 "It's important to be clear that we're not saying smartphones cause ADHD itself—there's been no research on that," he told VICE. "What can be said is that it can [exacerbate symptoms] of hyperactivity." 
 
 Kushlev told VICE that cases of adults who experience symptoms of ADHD or other attention disorders (yet haven't been formally diagnosed) have become more commonplace, adding that it may be because society typically thinks of conditions like ADHD as childhood conditions and don't get properly inspected by a doctor. 
 
 "I think, especially for people who weren't diagnosed as kids—ADHD is something we think that affects kids mostly," Kushlev said. "If we start experiencing theses cognitive impairments later in life, we don't jump to ADHD right away." 
 
 This year, research out of the Global Web Index found that more millennials than ever not only own smartphones, but are spending an average of 3.25 hours on the internet each day via their phone. 
 
 Of course, I'm assuming you made it here without clicking on something better.
– You may not have ADHD, but your smartphone could certainly be making you feel like you do, according to a study published this month. Researchers took 221 students at the University of British Columbia and split them into two groups. For one week, half the students turned their phones to "do not disturb" and put them out of reach and out of sight as much as possible while the rest kept using their phones as normal. The groups switched for the next week. “The results were clear: more frequent phone interruptions made people less attentive and more hyperactive," researcher Kostadin Kushlev writes in Quartz. Researchers came to that conclusion by asking participants how often they experienced 18 symptoms—trouble listening, restlessness, careless mistakes, etc.—associated with ADHD during the two-week experiment. According to Vice, the students—none of whom had been diagnosed with ADHD—were more distracted, anxious, and inattentive and more often bored during the week they were using their phones. And while smartphones aren't giving people ADHD, the study concludes they are causing ADHD-like symptoms. “These findings should concern us," Kushlev writes in Quartz. "Smartphones could be harming the productivity, relationships, and well-being of millions.” Luckily, there's an easy fix: Turn off your notifications and take a break from your phone whenever possible.