Research: How much does even the sound of a message on our mobile phone affect us – Even the sound of a message, a call or a vibration on our mobile phone distracts us to the same extent as if we were answering the phone call or sending a reply to the message.
Knowing that a text message or email has arrived on our mobile phone, even if we don't pick up the phone to read it, significantly distracts us from what we are doing at that moment.
According to a new study conducted by a team of psychologists from the University of Florida, people who receive notifications on their mobile phones while doing demanding computer work are three times more likely to make mistakes.
"Although these notifications are generally short-lived, they can cause the individual to have irrelevant thoughts and mental distractions, which have been shown to impair their work performance ," they state in their study
"Mobile phone notifications alone significantly disrupt performance on a demanding task, even when participants do not respond to them immediately.".
For the study, psychologists asked 166 people to play a computer game in which they had to press a button when specific numbers appeared on the screen.
Research The experiment was divided into two parts.
In the first, participants were simply asked to complete this task, while in the second - although they did not know it - they were randomly divided into three groups: call, text message or no notification.
The automated calls and text messages were sent to the personal phones of the participants in the first two groups, without them knowing that these notifications were coming from the researchers.
The researchers then compared their results with findings from other studies exploring the impact of cell phone use on attention and performance. They found that their results were similar, indicating that receiving a notification and not responding to it is just as distracting as answering the call or text message.
Researchers recommend that users put their cell phones on silent when engaged in important tasks, such as driving, as the knowledge of receiving even one message is a significant distraction.
"Even remembering that one has to do something in the future is enough to disrupt performance on an unrelated concurrent task," the researchers conclude.
The study's conclusions were published in the scientific journal Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
source: defencenet
