Level A2
Why Can't We Stop Checking Our Phones?
What a Buzz Does to Your Brain
Olivia tries a one-week experiment with her phone. She and Sean talk about monkeys, pigeons and goldfish, and why we check our phones so often.
↓ Download the printable PDFKey words
These words appear in the episode. In the transcript, hover over or tap a highlighted word to see what it means.
experimentnoun
A test that you do to learn something new.
In science class, we did an experiment with ice and salt.
notificationnoun
A short message on your phone. It tells you that something new happened.
I get a notification every time my brother posts a photo.
drawernoun
A small box in a table or cupboard. You pull it out to open it.
My socks are in the top drawer, next to my old watch.
enemynoun
A person or thing that is against you and makes your life hard.
In the film, the two brothers become enemies after a big fight.
buzznoun, verb
A short, low sound, like the sound of a bee or a phone.
I heard a buzz and looked for my phone under the sofa.
signalnoun
A sound or a light that tells you something.
When the light turns green, that's the signal to go.
at randomphrase
With no plan or order, so you can't know what comes next.
The teacher chose three students at random to read their stories.
addictiveadjective
So nice or exciting that it is very hard to stop.
This game is very addictive. I played it until two in the morning.
focusnoun
When you think about one thing for a long time.
I need a lot of focus for my maths homework, so I study in the library.
restlessadjective
Unable to stay calm or sit still.
The children got restless on the long car trip to their grandmother's house.
silentadjective
With no sound at all.
Please make your phone silent before the film starts.
cheatverb
To break the rules to get what you want.
My little brother cheated in the card game. He looked at my cards!
Did you understand?
Choose the correct answer.
1. Why did Olivia start her experiment?
2. In Skinner's experiment, which pigeons pecked more?
3. What happened in the 2015 study at Florida State University?
4. What did the BBC journalist find about the goldfish number?
5. In the University of Texas study, where was the phone when people did best?
Exercise 1
Who said it?
Complete the quote with a key word. Then guess who said it: Sean or Olivia?
1. “You laugh, but that drawer was my all week.”
Who said it?
2. “So the brain likes the more than the prize?”
Who said it?
3. “So the from my phone is the light.”
Who said it?
4. “He said phones are useful but , and he regrets the bad side.”
Who said it?
5. “But first, let me guess. You .”
Who said it?
Exercise 2
Code breaker
Write the key word for each clue. The pink letters spell an animal from the episode.
1. Olivia did this for one week, with three new rules for her phone.
2. Brichter said phones are useful, and they are also this.
3. For the monkeys, the light was this. It said: juice is coming!
4. Olivia's name for the kitchen drawer during her experiment.
5. You need a lot of it for a boring computer task.
6. In the Texas study, all the phones were like this. They made no sound.
Which animal is it?
Exercise 3
Your turn
Imagine you try Olivia's experiment for one week. Which rule is the hardest for you? Write three or four sentences. Use at least two words from the list.
Your text is saved on this device.
The drawer would be my enemy. My phone buzzes all day, and I check it every time. First, I would turn off my notifications. On day three, I think I would cheat and watch cat videos.
Full transcript
Show the transcript
Olivia
Day one, I picked up my phone, and the screen was gray.
Sean
Gray?
Olivia
Gray. No colors and no new messages. And I still picked it up.
Sean
How many times?
Olivia
Forty-one times before lunch. I counted.
Sean
Forty-one times, for a gray screen?
Olivia
For a gray screen.
Sean
This is Aprendos English, level A2. I'm Sean.
Olivia
And I'm Olivia.
Sean
So, Olivia, why was your phone gray?
Olivia
Last month I did an . One week, three new rules for my phone.
Sean
Why?
Olivia
My phone sent me a report. Five hours a day.
Sean
Five hours? That's a part-time job.
Olivia
Well, it is my job, a little. I'm a social media consultant.
Sean
So you help companies keep folks on their phones.
Olivia
I help companies talk to people. That's different.
Sean
Is it?
Olivia
A bit different. Okay, quick quiz. How many times a day does an American check their phone?
Sean
Twenty?
Olivia
Higher.
Sean
Fifty?
Olivia
One hundred and eighty-six.
Sean
One hundred and eighty-six? Every day?
Olivia
That's from a 2025 survey by the website Reviews.org. They asked about a thousand adults.
Sean
But that's once every five minutes…
Olivia
…when you're awake, yes. And most people check it in the first ten minutes of the day.
Sean
Not me. I check my phone maybe ten times a day.
Olivia
Ten times. Sure, Sean.
Sean
It's true! I'm British, and we're very calm people.
Olivia
Okay. Rule one, I turned off almost all my . Only calls and messages from my family came in.
Sean
And rule two was the gray screen.
Olivia
Yes, phones have a black and white setting. And rule three, my phone went in a kitchen during work.
Sean
A drawer. Very brave.
Olivia
You laugh, but that drawer was my all week.
Sean
So why did you pick it up forty-one times?
Olivia
I didn't know! My hand just did it. So that night, I started to read about the brain.
Sean
Let me guess. Dopamine.
Olivia
Dopamine. What do you know about it?
Sean
It's the happy chemical, isn't it? A message comes, and you feel good.
Olivia
I thought that too. But the true story starts with monkeys and juice.
Sean
Of course it does.
Olivia
In the early 1990s, a scientist in Switzerland, Wolfram Schultz, gave monkeys juice. And he watched their dopamine cells.
Sean
And the cells got excited about the juice.
Olivia
At first, yes. Then he turned on a light before the juice. The monkeys learned the pattern. Light, then juice.
Sean
So the dopamine came with the juice…
Olivia
…no, it moved to the light. And then the juice came, and the cells almost did nothing.
Sean
Wait. So the brain likes the more than the prize?
Olivia
In a way, yes. Dopamine is more about expecting. And surprise is very important.
Sean
So the from my phone is the light.
Olivia
The buzz is the light! And my phone buzzes all day long.
Sean
Okay, I know the next part. It's an old experiment from the 1950s, with pigeons.
Olivia
Monkeys, and now pigeons. This episode is a zoo.
Sean
An American psychologist, B. F. Skinner, put pigeons in a box. A pigeon pecked a small button, and food came out.
Olivia
Every time?
Sean
For some pigeons, yes. For others, food came . Guess which pigeons pecked more.
Olivia
The every-time pigeons. They know the food is coming.
Sean
No, the random pigeons. They pecked and pecked, because maybe the next peck was the lucky one.
Olivia
Oh no. That's a slot machine.
Sean
Skinner said the same thing about gambling. And the random pigeons kept pecking after the food stopped…
Olivia
…just like me in front of a gray screen.
Sean
Just like you.
Olivia
My phone is the same. Sometimes it's a message from a friend, and sometimes nothing.
Sean
And the nothing makes you check again.
Olivia
Yes. Do you know the move where you pull the screen down?
Sean
And new posts appear.
Olivia
Or they don't! That's pull-to-refresh. A designer, Loren Brichter, made it for a Twitter app in 2009.
Sean
Did he want a slot machine?
Olivia
He says no. But in 2017, the Guardian newspaper wrote about it. A former Google designer told them every swipe down is like a slot machine.
Sean
And Brichter? Was he angry?
Olivia
He didn't argue with it. He said phones are useful but , and he regrets the bad side.
Sean
That's quite honest. Okay, day two. The notifications are off. Is it better?
Olivia
It was very quiet. I wrote a whole article in one morning.
Sean
Without one buzz?
Olivia
Without one buzz. In 2015, a team at Florida State University gave people a boring computer task.
Sean
Boring on purpose?
Olivia
Yes, it needed a lot of . Then they sent some people a text or a call.
Sean
And the people answered…
Olivia
…no, they didn't touch their phones. They only heard the sound.
Sean
And that was enough?
Olivia
That was enough. They made more mistakes. Your mind asks, who is it? What do they want?
Sean
Did anybody try a whole week without notifications?
Olivia
Yes! In Canada, in 2016, at the University of British Columbia. Two hundred and twenty-one people.
Sean
Let me guess. One week with notifications, and one week without.
Olivia
Yes. With notifications on, people had more trouble with focus. They also felt .
Sean
So you copied two hundred Canadians.
Olivia
I prefer "I followed the science."
Sean
Of course you do.
Olivia
Before the experiment, I felt like a goldfish. People now have less attention than a goldfish, you know.
Sean
Oh, Olivia. No.
Olivia
What? It's everywhere! Microsoft said it in 2015.
Sean
I worked at the BBC for years. And in 2017, a BBC journalist checked that number…
Olivia
…and it was true.
Sean
No. He found nothing. There was no study about people, and no study about goldfish.
Olivia
So the goldfish is fake news.
Sean
The goldfish is innocent.
Olivia
Fine. But there is a true number. A scientist in California, Gloria Mark, studied office workers on computers.
Sean
And?
Olivia
In 2004, people stayed on one screen for two and a half minutes. In her newer studies, it's about forty-seven seconds.
Sean
Forty-seven seconds. That's worse than the goldfish!
Olivia
The goldfish is innocent, remember?
Sean
Sorry. What about the drawer?
Olivia
Day four was the worst. My phone was in the drawer. Then I felt a buzz in my pocket.
Sean
But your pocket was…
Olivia
…empty. Totally empty.
Sean
Oh, I know that feeling. Wait, sorry. I think my phone just buzzed…
Olivia
…Sean. Your phone is on the table, and it's off.
Sean
Right. Yes. It is.
Olivia
Ten times a day, he says.
Sean
That's a different thing!
Olivia
It's the same thing. The name is phantom vibration. In one American study, eighty-nine out of a hundred students felt it.
Sean
Eighty-nine? That's almost everybody. So why did the drawer help? You still felt the buzz.
Olivia
Because of my favorite study. It's from 2017, at the University of Texas, with almost eight hundred people.
Sean
What did they do?
Olivia
They did tests for memory and thinking. Some people had their phone on the desk. Some had it in a bag…
Sean
…and some in another room?
Olivia
Yes. And all the phones were . So, guess who did best.
Sean
No difference, surely. A silent phone does nothing.
Olivia
Wrong. The other room did best, and the desk did worst.
Sean
Even when it was off?
Olivia
Even when it was off. The researchers think ignoring it uses some of your attention.
Sean
So my phone, on this table…
Olivia
…is eating your brain a little. Later studies found a smaller effect, to be fair.
Sean
Fine. It's going in my bag.
Olivia
The other room is better.
Sean
The bag is enough for today. Last summer I was on a canal boat. There was no phone signal for three days. On day one I was angry, and on day three I was happy.
Olivia
Only three days? You need a longer boat.
Sean
And the gray screen? Did that do anything?
Olivia
A little. In 2020, two researchers tried it with a hundred and sixty-one college students. Some of them used a gray screen for about a week.
Sean
And they used their phones less?
Olivia
About forty minutes less every day.
Sean
So, day seven. But first, let me guess. You .
Olivia
On day three. I opened the drawer for one minute.
Sean
One minute. How long was it really?
Olivia
Forty minutes of dog videos.
Sean
One minute.
Olivia
But on day seven, my screen time was two and a half hours.
Sean
From five? That's…
Olivia
…half. And I read a whole book, a paper one.
Sean
So it was all good news.
Olivia
Well, my friends moved our dinner, so I went to the wrong café.
Sean
Because you didn't check your phone.
Olivia
Because I didn't check my phone. I sat alone with a coffee for half an hour.
Sean
Honestly, that sounds quite nice.
Olivia
It was. Bellingham has very good coffee.
Sean
So you're cured now.
Olivia
Not really. On day eight, the colors came back. But my notifications are still off.
Sean
And the drawer? Still your enemy?
Olivia
We're friends now. Mostly.
Sean
So, listeners, here's a little challenge. Tomorrow, count every time you pick up your phone.
Olivia
And for one hour, put your phone in another room. Then write a comment. What was your number, and what did you do in that hour?
Sean
The written version of this story is free, too. You can get the PDF just below this video.
Olivia
Subscribe for more stories about your brain. And Sean is doing the challenge too.
Sean
Easy. Ten times a day.
Olivia
I want the real number, Sean. See you next time!
Sean
Bye! And don't check your phone during the goodbye.
Want more stories at your level?
Aprendos has hundreds of podcast episodes with exercises that adapt to you.
Try Aprendos for free