<\/p>\n The study consisted of getting 180 university students to do a Stroop task \u2014 that being a test that involves colored words flashing on a screen. The words spell one color and appear in another, and the goal is to correctly identify the font color, ignoring what\u2019s written.<\/p>\n Article continues below <\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Researchers split participants into three groups \u2014 one which received generic social media notifications on the screen while carrying out the test, one which was told the notifications mirrored those on their phone, and one which had blurred notifications appearing with illegible text.<\/p>\n \n The iPhone 17 Pro has Focus modes to limit notifications (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff \/ Future)<\/p>\n In all cases, it was found that each notification affected their attention for around seven seconds, but the effect was most pronounced among the group who believed the notifications mirrored those on their phone \u2014 showing that more personally relevant notifications are more distracting.<\/p>\n Hippolyte Fournier, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and the study’s first author, told CNET that “we observed that both the volume of notifications and how often individuals check their smartphones were linked to greater disruption.”<\/p>\n “This pattern suggests that the fragmented nature of smartphone use, rather than simply total usage duration, may be a key factor in understanding how digital technologies influence attentional processes.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So how to address this? One obvious answer is to limit the ability for notifications to reach you. On iPhone, this can be done through Focus modes, which let you customize which apps will send notifications when a specific mode (such as \u2018work\u2019 or \u2018sleep\u2019) is active.<\/p>\n Depending on your Android phone you may have similar tools there too, such as the Digital Wellbeing tools (which also includes focus modes) on Pixel phones, or a basic Do Not Disturb setting.<\/p>\n If there are some apps that you never want notifications from, you could also permanently disable notifications for specific apps, through that app\u2019s section of your phone\u2019s settings menu.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n You may also want to look into how notifications are displayed, with many phones allowing you to choose how prominent they are or where they appear \u2014 these options are typically found in the notifications section of a phone\u2019s settings menu.<\/p>\n You could also distance yourself from your phone, putting it in another room for example when you\u2019re working, though if you\u2019re wearing a smartwatch that won\u2019t stop notifications appearing on your wrist, and while the study didn\u2019t look at wearables, we\u2019d imagine the impact is similar.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Follow TechRadar on Google News<\/a> and add us as a preferred source<\/a> to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!<\/p>\n And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok<\/a> for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp<\/a> too.<\/p>\n![\"Apple](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/TeursDJa5pkWDaY75233RN.jpg\")
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