CBS SUNDAY MORNING to Discuss Smartphones, 9/30

By: Claire Hannum Sep. 28, 2012

Studies suggest that roughly 90 percent of American adults own a cell phone and it seems most of the time they're using them, reports Susan Spencer on this weekend's CBS SUNDAY MORNING WITH Charles Osgood. It means, however, technology that is meant to connect Americans actually leaves them more disconnected.

Instead of talking to each other, Americans are looking down at their phones while texting, tweeting, emailing and posting on social media, reports Spencer.

"These days, the minute people are alone, at a stop sign, at the checkout line in a supermarket, they panic," MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle tells Spencer. "They reach for the phone."

Turkle studies the impact of mobile technology on behavior and says the result is that high-speed connections have left folks more disconnected than ever before. On average, 18- to 24-year-olds send and receive 3,200 texts a month, Spencer reports.

UCLA neuroscientist Gary Small tells Spencer that the connectivity has some positive upside. While acknowledging smartphones can be distracting, he says they also can help stimulate the brain.

"It does make us smart in many ways," Small tells Spencer, "Because we're able to access information that we don't have to memorize in traditional ways. And in a way, we've kind of extended our biological memory outside ourselves – the World Wide Web is our new, vast storage memory unit."

Spencer's full report will air Sept. 30 on CBS SUNDAY MORNING (9:00 AM ET) on the CBS Television Network. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.