Frequent Mobile Phone Use "might" Improve Mental Concentration

According to a recently published study, frequent mobile phone users demonstrated slowed Brain function, but the users also showed better focused attention, which can be explained as a learning effect related to making more phone calls in distractive surroundings.
The researchers note that no firm conclusions can be drawn as to whether these effects are to be considered an adverse health effect (or indeed, a benefit), but data have already been collected from more than 20,000 people to replicate this study and further investigate the adverse health effects.
In the September issue of the International Journal of Neuroscience a study will be published on the long term effects of Mobile Phone use on brain function. Earlier studies have mostly investigated the acute effects of mobile phone use on brain function. However, this study employed an epidemiological approach to investigate the long-term effects of mobile phone use on brain function. In this study data was used from 300 people of which 100 were 'frequent mobile phone users', 100 'non-mobile phone users' and an 'intermediate group' of 100 people. Differences in brain activity (measured using QEEG or quantative EEG), Neuropsychological functions such as attention, memory and executive function and personality traits were assessed.
The results show that frequent mobile phone users score higher on extraversion. Furthermore, frequent mobile phone users showed improved focused attention. This was explained by a learning effect due to making more phone calls in busy environments, whereby people learn to focus better on the phone call and filter out irrelevant environmental information. However, the brain activity from frequent mobile phone users shows more slow activity (increased Delta and Theta) and a slowing of the Alpha Peak Frequency. These effects could not be explained by the differences in personality and focused attention.