Music of the mind

I remember this incident as if it happened yesterday. It was not usual for me to personally attend our field studies as the CEO and chief scientific advisor of the company, but that day, some senior executives were scheduled to witness a live demonstration of one of our research projects. In the morning, I took the high-speed train heading to downtown Manhattan to supervise the experiment, where we installed a closed-circuit television inside several small living rooms, allowing us to watch the first group of women participants while they watched TV for an hour. Each participant received 150 dollars, while their eye movements and behaviors related to smartphone use were recorded for later analysis at our team headquarters in Boston. As part of the experiment, half of the participants were asked to leave their phones in another room, aiming to compare their behavior with those who kept their devices. What caught my attention was an unexpected scene of one participant; she appeared very distressed without her smartphone, frustrated, irritable, to the point that she grabbed the sofa as if she was about to lose control of herself. At first, I thought she was uncomfortable due to the unfamiliar place, or perhaps experiencing a panic attack, but her condition persisted longer than expected. I considered the possibility that she might have taken drugs, which we encountered in some previous studies, but the research team did not notice any abnormal signs before she joined the experiment.