Hi, we're here from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes.

I'm Cody Gough.

And I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today you learn about why using your phone during a break is a bad idea,

why we roll our eyes, and how you can measure your materialism to see where you stand in

consumer culture.

Let's consume some curiosity.

When you go to the restroom or take a 10 minute break from doing hard mental work?

Do you pull out your phone and start swiping and scrolling,

like I do?

Well, new research says that using your phone on a break

is a bad idea, because doing that doesn't let your brain recharge effectively

and that could lead to poorer performance. As reported by futurity,

researchers from Rutgers University Business School designed a pretty simple experiment to come to this

conclusion.

They assigned 414 college undergraduates challenging sets of word puzzles.

Halfway through, some were allowed to take breaks using their cell phones, others took

breaks using paper or a computer, and others didn't take a break at all.

And you guessed it, the participants who took a break on their cell phone were among the least capable of solving the puzzles afterwards.

They took 19% longer to do the rest of the task, and they solved 22% fewer problems than their participants in the other break conditions combined.

The studies co-author Terry Kurtzburg said it's important for us to understand the costs that go along with reaching for your phone between

tasks or even in the middle of a task which certainly seems to be happening more

...