Blog

Does having your phone nearby hurt your focus?

October 20, 2026

You've probably heard that just having your phone on the desk, even face down and silent, makes you less smart. It's one of the most shared findings about phones. Is it true?

The honest answer: maybe, and the evidence is mixed. Here's what the research found.

The "brain drain" study

In 2017, researchers ran tests with about 800 people. Some left their phone on the desk, some in a pocket or bag, and some in another room. People whose phones were in another room did best on tests of working memory and problem solving, especially those who said they depended on their phones most.

The authors' explanation: part of your mind is busy not checking the phone, which leaves less for the task.

(Ward, Duke, Gneezy & Bos, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2017)

The studies that couldn't repeat it

Good science gets checked. A 2021 study at the University of Bern tested 302 people with the phone either on the desk or across the room. Overall, phone location made no difference to memory.

The authors still advised against keeping phones on desks at work, and called for more research.

(Hartmann et al., 2021, summarised by the British Psychological Society)

An earlier finding, that a phone's mere presence hurts attention, also failed to replicate in a 2017 study from Oxford.

(Lyngs & McKay, 2017)

So what should you do?

Even if the phone sitting there costs you nothing, picking it up clearly does. Each check pulls you out of what you were doing. In one study, people who were interrupted worked faster to catch up, and paid for it with more stress, frustration and time pressure.

(Mark, Gudith & Klocke, CHI, 2008)

So the practical advice hasn't changed:

• Put the phone in another room for focused work. It costs nothing and removes the temptation.
• Turn off notifications for everything except calls from people who matter.
• Work in blocks: 45 or 90 minutes, then check messages on purpose.
• Remove the feeds, so the phone has less to pull you back to.

That last one is what Umer OS does on Android, and its Focus mode gives you a distraction-free 45 or 90 minutes.

Join the free beta

Related: The research behind Umer OS · How to stop scrolling Instagram