The study, conducted at the Faculty of Management at Ben-Gurion University, found that receiving messages on a cell phone when making decisions causes impulsiveness and reduces long-term planning. The conclusion: did you receive a message on your mobile? Better to wait with an important decision
Do you remember this message by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the 2015 election day "Right-wing rule is in danger. Arab voters are moving to the polls in large numbers. The left-wing associations bring them in buses. We don't have V-15, we have Order 8, we only have you. Go to the polls, bring your friends and family members, vote sick to close the gap between us and the "Labor" party. With your help and God's help we will establish a national government that will protect the State of Israel"?
This message was circulated in the last few hours by tens of thousands of Likud supporters who feared what was said in it, something that, according to all experts, tipped the scales and helped Netanyahu's victory.
Decision making requires resources of attention, time, storage and processing of information. The researcher Dr. Avi Israel, from the Faculty of Management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, found in his doctoral thesis that messages received on the mobile phone when making decisions create a cognitive load for us. The burden consists of being required to make a decision, but at the same time being interrupted by distractions, such as cell phone messages. The load leads to an increase in the level of tension, impairs the ability to make a considered decision and produces impulsivity and a preference for the present over thinking about the future.
As part of Dr. Avi Israel's research, under the guidance of Professor Mossi Rosenbaum from the Faculty of Management at Ben Gurion University and Professor Tal Shavit from the Department of Economics and Business Administration at Ariel University, a laboratory experiment was conducted during which the experimenters were asked to make decisions, according to the division into 3 experimental groups (in each group participated approx. 60 experimenters, with equal gender distribution):
- A group that received messages with high frequency, one per minute.
- A group that received messages with low frequency, once every three minutes.
- A control group that received no messages at all.
The participants in the experiment were asked to make decisions on economic issues related to time preference, such as: what do you prefer, to receive an amount of NIS 600 now or to receive a higher amount in two years.
It was found that participants who received messages while making financial decisions tended to prefer the present over the future more than participants who were not interrupted by messages. The study also shows that no significant difference was found between the groups that received a message once every minute or once every three minutes, but there was a noticeable difference between these groups and the group that did not receive messages at all. Hence, the effect on the tendency to choose the present is not related to the frequency of the messages, but to the very interruption and distraction. These interruptions and distractions cause an increase in the cognitive load, and it is this that causes the preference for the present as proven in previous studies.
"The implications of the research are broad and important for our day-to-day lives," says Dr. Avi Israel who conducted the research. "Making decisions in general and financial decisions in particular, is affected by disturbances
In general and clearly it was found that receiving messages on the cell phone while making decisions can cause a bias in the decision and sometimes to make a wrong decision".
So the next time you go into the bank to take out a loan, when you go shopping or need to make an important decision about the future, you should turn off your cell phone, at least until after you've made your decision.
One response
The best advice that an individual can follow, both in thought disorders and
Wasting food - but why don't all the Fats together abolish government
Advertisers who are curable?
Walking down the street or in the mall - lots of moving advertising screens...
Flooding in restaurants...people who don't have work for them are forced to
run a restaurant or manufacture weapons - otherwise they won't be able to buy for themselves
Food-soap-home-clothes-school...if Shilton will provide a living without work
These people will educate their children and will not let them be tyrannized in the commune