Smartphones, Memory, and Pharmacy Education

A widely cited article in the popular press by Jan Twenge asks, "Have smartphones destroyed a generation?" She goes on to provide examples and evidence that the amount of screen time is linked to higher levels of teen depression, suicide rates, spending less time with friends, and higher levels of unhappiness.1 The ubiquity of smartphone technology has made using true experimental design difficult for scholars, however; several studies on college students have shown growing evidence that there is a direct correlation between the use of smartphones and overall mental health.2,3 Smartphones may also be affecting cognitive functioning. [...]expertise in a body of knowledge is a characteristic of a profession, and is embedded in the pharmacists' code of ethics.8 However, Sparrow concluded that "when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it. In 2014, the national pass rate on the NAPLEX for first-time test takers was 94.887%.10 In 2017, this pass rate was 87.95%.10 Granted, there are many variables involved in this trend (eg, examination difficulty, students' academic ability, students' approach to examination preparation), but one cannot help but wonder, if the growing reliance on the external database of memory in smartphones is negatively affecting our students' ability to recall and apply the requisite information needed to pass the NAPLEX.