Shooting the Shit with Wayne; Companies hiring 65+; Are Smart Phones making us Dumber?

COMPANIES ARE HIRING THE OVER 70 CROWD.

Of course, there are obvious downsides of the geriatric demographic: They may be luddites, fossilized in their ways, or burnt out or lethargic, and—it’s true—the clock is ticking. But researchers are discovering that some cognitive abilities don’t peak until later in life. A study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology last year measured mental abilities among executive job applicants across the age spectrum. Generally, older executives scored modestly lower than younger ones, with the largest drop-offs for subjects older than 60, which is why positions like air-traffic controllers have a mandatory retirement age of 56. Yet age has a positive correlation with higher crystallized intelligence, which measures experience-based knowledge such as verbal capability and emotional IQ. Widespread cognitive-ability tests used for narrowing candidate pools often don’t measure these attributes.

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RADIO IS MORE POPULAR IN THE US THAN YOU THINK

The common assumption in the tech world is that old media platforms are dying a slow death. As smart devices become more and more ubiquitous, the need for traditional platforms like linear cable TV seems to only lessen with each passing year.

But while there’s no denying the changes new technologies have brought, it might be unwise to discount just how influential those older platforms remain. For instance, radio, not smartphones or PCs, reaches more Americans each week than any other media platform, according to a recent Nielsen report charted for us by Statista.

Roughly 228 million adults in the US listened to some form of radio at least once a week in the fourth quarter of 2016, the report said. That’s good for 93% of the US adult population, and the figure is growing. TV had the second-farthest reach at 89%, followed by smartphones at 83%. The PC and tablet were well behind, at 50% and 37%, respectively.

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OUR SMART PHONES ARE MAKING US DUMBER

 

Though our phones are getting smarter, new research suggests they’re actually making us dumber.

A team of researchers at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin set out to test the “brain drain” hypothesis: the theory that simply having your smartphone near you could impact your available cognitive capacity.

The study featured 800 participants who were required to take a test on a computer that required their undivided attention. The participants were divided into three groups that each received different instructions: one group was instructed to place their phones face down on the table next to the computer they were using, another was instructed to leave their phones nearby but out-of-sight, such as in a pocket or bag, and the third group was told to leave their phones in another room.

Prior to the start of the test, all three groups were instructed to turn off all notifications on their phones.

The researchers found that individuals who left their phones in the other room scored higher on a test than those who had their phones nearby, despite the latter group saying they had not been thinking about their phones.

Participants in all three groups self-reported thoughts about their smartphones at the same frequency. The results suggest that the mere presence of one’s smartphone has a measurable impact on an individual’s available cognitive capacity, regardless of if they feel distracted or not.

And so, next time you find yourself really needing to concentrate on something, it might be best to get as far away from your phone as you can.

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