The regular use of text messages and e-mails can lower the IQ more than twice as much as smoking marijuana.

　　That is the claim of psychologists who have found that tapping away on a mobile phone or computer keypad or checking them for electronic messages temporarily knocks up to 10 points off the user’s IQ.

　　This rate of decline in intelligence compares unfavourably with the four-point drop in IQ associated with smoking marijuana, according to British researchers, who have labelled the fleeting phenomenon of enhanced stupidity as "infomania".

　　Research on sleep deprivation suggests that the IQ drop caused by electronic obsession is also equivalent to a wakeful night.

　　Infomania is mainly a problem for adult workers, especially men, the study commissioned by Hewlett Packard, the technology company, has concluded.

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