🫀 How Your Smartphone Hijacks Your Physiology

New research reveals how phone-related distractions are linked to poor body awareness and increased physiological arousal

You’re in the middle of a task, focused and productive. You hear a notification ping to your right and you notice your phone screen light up. Suddenly, your attention is hijacked.

It might feel trivial, but a new study suggests these moments of distraction may have deeper cognitive and physiological consequences. Specifically, some people seem especially vulnerable to smartphone-related distractions, and this vulnerability may be linked to poorer awareness of bodily sensations and greater physiological arousal.

📱 How much does your smartphone distract you?

In a March 2025 study published in Nature Communications Psychology, researchers recruited 58 young adults in Japan and asked them to complete a letter detection task. This fast-paced task asked them to look for a target letter within a series of letters on a computer screen. An easy mode repeated the same letter across the whole series allowing straightforward detection, while a difficult mode hid the target letter among a bunch of random letters.

To add an interesting twist, the researchers had two possible visual backgrounds for each letter series in the task. One type of background was smartphone-related, which could appear as an incoming call screen, chat screen, or home screen. The other was a randomly scrambled control background with no obvious identity.

During the experiment, researchers recorded participants’ heart rates and collected questionnaire data on body awareness (interoception) and smartphone habits.

Based on reaction times in the task, the researchers grouped participants into two categories:

• Focused group: these participants were distracted by smartphone images only during the easier tasks. When the task got harder and required more attention, they were able to focus.

• Fully distracted group: these participants were distracted by smartphone images regardless of how difficult the task was. Even when the task required complete focus, they couldn’t tune out the background phone-related stimuli.

The researchers looked into what might distinguish the two groups, and they found some interesting physiological answers.

Fully distracted participants had poorer body awareness and faster heart rates.

When people had a consistent attentional bias toward smartphone stimuli, they scored significantly lower on measures of interoceptive awareness that probed their ability to understand and manage bodily sensations. More specifically, they were less likely to notice or trust bodily sensations, such as internal cues of stress or calm.

They also scored higher on a smartphone addiction scale, reporting more compulsive, disruptive phone use.

Finally, when their attention was distracted by smartphone images, their heart rates accelerated—a sign of physiological arousal. In contrast, the focused group’s heart rates slowed, indicating a calmer orienting response.

In other words, people who struggle to ignore smartphone cues tend to have poorer internal body awareness, higher physiological reactivity, and greater self-reported phone dependence.

This combination may suggest a worrying feedback loop: lower bodily awareness could make it harder to notice stress or boredom, leading people to rely more on their phones to self-regulate—making them more reactive to phone cues, which in turn reinforces habitual use.

Most of us use our smartphones every day. But this research suggests that how we relate to our phones—especially how easily our attention is hijacked by them—may reflect deeper patterns of cognition, physiology, and emotion regulation.

The research adds weight to the growing idea that excessive smartphone use shares features with behavioral addictions, including cue-triggered physiological arousal and poor interoception.

⭐️ Takeaway tips

#1. Notice when your attention shifts—and where it goes

• If you find yourself frequently distracted by phone-related cues (buzzes, glances, or even thoughts), take a moment to observe what’s happening internally. Are you bored, anxious, or tired? Do you actually want to use your phone or are you merely reacting to it? Improving your awareness of bodily and emotional states may help you recognize these moments more clearly—and regain control.

#2. Strengthen interoceptive awareness through practice

• Mind-body practices like mindfulness meditation or body scanning can help improve your ability to notice and interpret internal signals. When you’re more aware of what’s happening in your body, you’re less likely to misinterpret physical sensations and less likely to get lost in emotional spirals. Over time, this awareness may also support stronger resilience against compulsive phone habits.

#3. Create deliberate boundaries to reduce cue exposure

• If certain environments or tasks make it harder for you to ignore your phone, consider changing the setup. Turn off notifications during focused work, keep your phone out of sight, or put your phone face down on the table to create less visual temptation. Reducing visual exposure can decrease attentional capture.

“People become attached to their burdens, sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.”

~ George Bernard Shaw

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