Index IntroductionLiterature ReviewConclusionReferences:IntroductionAlong with other technological advancements, smartphones have become an integral part of modern people's lives. It is estimated that smartphone owners interact with their cell phones on average 85 times a day, including immediately after waking up, just before going to sleep and even in the middle of the night. 91% say they never leave home without their cell phone. 46% say they couldn't live without a smartphone. At the University of Texas at Austin, there has been a lot of research highlighting the negative effects of smartphone use, but new evidence suggests that smartphones harm cognitive abilities even when they're not being used. It turns out that the mere presence of smartphones in your peripheral vision could have some pretty serious cognitive consequences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Additionally, as Fran Molloy wrote in her article "Smartphones Are Making Us Stupid – and They May Be a 'Gateway Drug,'" some parents are purchasing electronic devices in the hopes that their children will learn to become technologically advanced. more advanced and help them learn school material more easily. However, smartphones and tablets are doing the opposite and are reducing children's "cognitive abilities in measurable ways" (Molloy). In addition to this, smartphones are “linked to reduced social interaction, inadequate sleep, poor real-world navigation, and depression” (Molloy). So the purpose of this essay is to analyze the effects of smartphones on a person's cognitive abilities. Literature Review According to Barr, Pennycook, Stolz, and Fugelsang (2015), researchers stated that smartphones will lead a person to have less analytical skills and intuitive thinking skills when faced with problems that require them to use their reasoning skills. The researchers conducted three studies in this research which showed that participants who have a high level of smartphone usage have a low heuristic thinking ability for the first study, followed by the second study which includes, studying between a greater amount of smartphone use leading to poor reasoning skills of participants as an alternative explanation. The third study involves investigating the association between increased smartphone use leading to lower academic performance of participants. Evidence to Support the Claim In the first study to investigate the association between smartphone use and heuristic thinking, results show that participants who have a high level of smartphone use scored lower on cognitive style questions. Namely, prolonged smartphone use may cause an increase in cognitive impairments because participants tend to apply heuristic thinking when using their smartphones. The second study investigating the association between smartphone use and reasoning skills shows that participants who have a high level of smartphone use have lower cognitive ability. Namely, using smartphones as sources of information will cause users to lose the ability to ask reasoning questions since, according to researchers, smartphone users offload thinking by relying on external sources of information since smartphones are used with ease. The third study investigating the association between smartphone use and academic performance shows that there are no associations between