Indicators of shot-term visual memory in children-users of mobile phone

This article presents the results of a study of indices of short-term visual memory in children - mobile phone users. Number of figures (NF) reproduced by pupil, and the time (T) of tasks - execution (this parameter introduced in our research), were studied in 106 nine years old pupils of 3rd year in primary school, who were subdivided into groups according to duration of calls and daily load.

It was found that pupils who are «moderate» mobile phone users (talk time is less than 5 min / day), revealed the following patterns of changes in accuracy (NF) and time (T) of the task, depending on the total duration of mobile phone usage. Thus, when the duration is 1 year the performance NF = 7.7 and T = 54.3 sec; 2 years - NF = 5.9 and T = 66.0 sec; 3 years - NF = 6.4 and T = 62.7 sec; and 4 years - NF = 6.8 and T = 58.8 sec. The resulting pattern indicates that if duration reaches 2 years (i.e. the children began to use mobile phones since 7 years old) the accuracy the task with a simultaneous increase in time sharply decrease (we called it the «minimum summation effect» of «physiological response»).

Basing on our results, we can assume that the duration of mobile phone usage of 3 and 4 years (i.e. children became users since 6 and 5 years old respectively), affects the accuracy and task execution time (indices are worse than at users with 1-year experience).

In addition, some results are obtained for the «active» users (talk time from 5 to 20 min / day). Thus, regardless of the total duration of usage, the accuracy of the task ranges of average values (6.4-6.5), while the execution time is in the 1.1-1.3 times longer compared with a group of «moderate» members.

Thus, it can be assumed that mobile phone electromagnetic radiation leads to changes in short-term visual memory in primary school children dependent from a regime of mobile phone usage.