Each phone ping requires 7 seconds of your attention. Here’s how to get it back

A new study found that each notification can distract you for about seven seconds
The more personal the notification, the more distracting it is
Phones have tools to fix this problem, such as focus modes and other settings.

You probably don’t need a study to tell you that smartphone notifications can be distracting, but it seems they’re even more distracting than you think.

According to a new report to be published in the June issue of the journal Computers in Human Behavior (via CNET), every time you receive a message notification on your phone, it interrupts your attention for about seven seconds. Given the number of notifications you’re likely receiving per day – with study participants receiving around 100 per day, for example – this can really add up.

The study involved asking 180 university students to complete a Stroop task, which is a test involving colored words flashing on a screen. Words spell one color and appear in another, and the goal is to correctly identify the font color, ignoring what is written.

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The researchers divided participants into three groups: one who received generic social media notifications on the screen while running the test, one who was told the notifications mirrored those on their phone, and one who had blurry notifications appearing with unreadable text.

iPhone 17 Pro has Focus modes to limit notifications (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

In all cases, each notification was found to affect their attention for about seven seconds, but the effect was more pronounced among the group who thought the notifications mirrored those on their phone, showing that more personally relevant notifications are more distracting.

Hippolyte Fournier, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and first author of the study, told CNET that “we observed that the volume of notifications and the frequency with which individuals checked their smartphones were linked to greater disruptions.”

“This trend suggests that the fragmented nature of smartphone use, rather than just total duration of use, could be a key factor in understanding how digital technologies influence attentional processes.”

So how to solve this problem? An obvious answer is to limit the ability of notifications to reach you. On iPhone, this can be done through Focus modes, which allow you to customize which apps will send notifications when a specific mode (such as “work” or “sleep”) is active.

Depending on your Android phone, you may also have similar tools, such as Digital Wellbeing Tools (which also includes focus modes) on Pixel phones, or a basic Do Not Disturb setting.

If there are certain apps that you never want to receive notifications for, you can also permanently turn off notifications for specific apps, through that app’s section in your phone’s settings menu.

You may also want to look at how notifications are displayed, with many phones letting you choose their importance or location. These options are usually found in the notifications section of a phone’s settings menu.

You can also move away from your phone, putting it in another room, such as when you’re working, but if you’re wearing a smartwatch that won’t block notifications from appearing on your wrist, and even though the study didn’t look at wearable devices, we imagine the impact is similar.

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