Skip to main content

Study says smartphone notifications are ruining our concentration

Phone Notifications
2nix Studio/Shutterstock
The experts still aren’t exactly sure how smartphone use affects our productivity levels and concentration spans, but a new study from Florida State University sheds more light on the matter: It says that mobile notifications can play havoc with our focus, even if we don’t actually pick up the phone to respond to them.

The problem is that alerts can break our concentration, whether or not we take action on them straight away — if you hear (or feel) that a text has come in, then the likelihood is you’ll start wondering who it’s from, what it might say and how you could respond. All of that thinking takes up valuable “bandwidth” inside the brain and takes our mind off the task at hand.

“Although these notifications are generally short in duration, they can prompt task-irrelevant thoughts, or mind wandering, which has been shown to damage task performance,” the study authors say. “We found that cellular phone notifications alone significantly disrupted performance on an attention-demanding task, even when participants did not directly interact with a mobile device during the task.”

Study authors Cary Stothart, Ainsley Mitchum, and Courtney Yehnert ran volunteers through an attention-monitoring test to reach their conclusions. Participants were found to perform significantly worse on a task when their phones were buzzing or ringing — they were three times more likely to make mistakes, the research found. The volunteers didn’t know in advance they would be getting alerts from the research team.

In fact, the level of distraction was comparable to actually answering a phone call or writing a text message, which could have serious implications for how we use our phones in the future (when driving for example). If you really want to keep your mind on a task, just ignoring your smartphone notifications isn’t enough — you need to disable them altogether.

Editors' Recommendations

David Nield
Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…
Don’t buy this new Motorola phone — get this other one instead
Renders of the Moto G 5G (2024) and Moto G Power 5G (2024).

the Moto G 5G (left) and Moto G Power 5G Digital Trends

Budget phones can slip under the radar when shiny, powerful flagships launch. But if you're in the market for a smartphone that gets the job done and won't blow a four-figure hole in your bank balance, then a great budget smartphone is the way to go.

Read more
Get 32% off the cellular model of the iPad Pro 12.9 this weekend
The iPad Pro on a desk next to a stylus and AirPods.

If you've been thinking about getting the iPad Pro with cellular connectivity but you've been hoping to buy the tablet from iPad deals for a discount, this may be what you've been waiting for -- a 32% discount from Amazon's Woot on the 12.9-inch, Wi-Fi + Cellular model of the 2021 Apple iPad Pro with 128GB of storage. From $1,199, it's down to just $810, which is a steal price for this device with savings of $389. However, while there are still several days left on this offer, it's highly recommended that you proceed with the purchase immediately because there's a chance that stocks don't last that long.

Why you should buy the 2021 Apple iPad Pro 12.9
It's not the latest version of Apple's top-of-the-line tablet -- the honor goes to the 2022 Apple iPad Pro -- but the 2021 Apple iPad Pro is still a pretty powerful device by today's standards. That's because it's equipped with Apple's M1 chip, which promises fantastic speed and excellent graphics when you're working on your multimedia projects, multitasking between several apps, or playing console-level games. With its 12.9-inch Liquid Retina XDR touchscreen, you'll enjoy high-brightness and high-contrast content, and its mini-LED display provides deeper black levels and more vibrant colors.

Read more
Samsung Galaxy A55 vs. A54: all the big changes, explained
Renders of the Samsung Galaxy A55 next to the Galaxy A54.

Galaxy A55 (left) and Galaxy A54 Digital Trends

Samsung has been on a roll with new phone releases in 2024. At the end of January, Samsung released the flagship Galaxy S24 lineup. It's fantastic, but not everyone can afford the latest and greatest flagship. Thankfully, Samsung also makes budget-friendly alternatives, and that’s the appeal of the new Galaxy A55.

Read more