Push Notifications Are as Distracting as Phone Calls

A new study from three researchers at Florida State University suggests that merely receiving a push notification is as distracting as responding to a text message or a phone call. The study asked more than 150 students to complete a well-known test of sustained attentional performance. The researchers found that performance on the assessment suffered if the student received any kind of audible notification. That is, every kind of phone distraction was equally destructive to their performance: An irruptive ping distracted people just as much as a shrill, sustained ring tone. It didn’t matter, too, if a student ignored the text or didn’t answer the phone: As long as they got a notification, and knew they got it, their test performance suffered.

“Our results suggest that mobile phones can disrupt attention performance even if one does not interact with the device,” write the study’s authors. “As mobile phones become integrated into more and more tasks, it may become increasingly difficult for people to set their phones aside and concentrate fully on the task at hand, whatever it may be.” Furthermore, they add, the feeling of “divided attention” may be so uncomfortable that it drives people to look at their phones, even if they know they shouldn’t. “If people are genuinely distracted by notification-induced thoughts, some problematic mobile phone use could be prompted by the desire to escape that feeling,” they write.