We know it's terrible for us, but we wanna play Candy Crush … 

We all would rather be looking at our phones. The human brain is wired to deeply enjoy flashing lights, fun noises, pictures of boobs and online shopping. We'd all rather be distracted and not do work and eat Oreos in our underpants, but what separates grown adults from hedonistic monsters is self-control and delaying gratification. But since we have all of the boobs in the world right in our pockets at all times, staying focused is really becoming a thing of the past.

You have to admit, this does look pretty sweet:

I mean, come on! We don't have to walk, and we get awesome milkshakes all day? And you can be your sweet, fat ass that probably 50% of people in the movie Wall-E were streaming porn on their little personal screens. 

But in an attempt to stop this kid's movie from becoming a future documentary, researchers from the University of British Columbia set out to show exactly how bad being relentlessly tethered to your cell phone can be for your brain, and things don't look good. 

Their study looked at a group of 221 young people in an experimental distraction setting. The group spent one week with phone notifications on vibrate and phones within reach, and another week with phone notifications on silent while their phones were away. Throughout these periods, researchers measured the productivity and anxiety levels of each individual.

And their results?

During the week with constant notifications, the group reported a higher level of distraction and anxiousness than they did when their notifications were shut off. The study group also complained about inattentiveness and boredom. None of the individuals studied had actually been diagnosed with ADHD before.

The main take-away from the study? Silence actually made it easier for people to focus on their work. For god's sake, turn off your phone when you're trying to get shit done. 

Now the researchers didn't want to jump to conclusions prematurely and say something like, "Cell phones cause ADHD!" but we sure do.