Digital Distraction: The Cost of Attention & Productivity from Receiving a Cell Phone Notification (Part 1)

It’s been proven repeatedly through research and is one of the guiding principles of human factors that we don’t multitask well.  We can’t do two things well at one time and when we switch from one task to another it costs us time as we refocus our efforts and attention.  This is why we sometimes will turn down the radio/TV or keep our phones in our pocket or maybe place them screen down when we want to concentrate on something.  However, a recent study has shown that unless your phone is fully off or silenced it is still distracting you.  The familiar chime or vibrating buzz of a new notification affects us more than you think.

The latest research study, The Attentional Cost of Receiving a Cell Phone Notification, showed that the buzz of new notifications can distract us, even when we don’t look to see what it is.  It found that just being aware of an alert can hurt people’s performance on attention-demanding tasks. Think about when you’re driving or at your desk working when you feel/hear a notification come in.  Does it momentarily take your mind and possibly your eyes off what you are doing?  Similarly, what happens to you when the email notification pops up on your screen when you’re working on a report or other task?  You can’t completely ignore it—your mind will go to that notification. 

When you try to multitask you are asking your brain to work really hard, i.e. the cognitive load is heavy, and therefore your performance suffers.  This has shown to be very true and even deadly, for instance in distracted driving---that’s why you’re not to text/email and drive at the same time.  The authors of the study admit that a notification doesn’t produce the same intense cognitive load as texting and driving, but it does produce enough of a distraction to make your performance worse than if you had not received one.

You can read the study for the exact methods.  Suffice it say they were looking for “action slips”, i.e. errors.  They did two tests—one with no notifications and one with notifications.  The results showed an increase in error rate of 28% in the group that received the notifications than the group that didn’t.  An interesting note is that the group that didn’t receive notifications they still made 7% more errors.  The authors attribute this to “task fatigue”—when your performance declines the longer you do a specific task regardless of interruptions.

Key Point

Essentially having your phone near you can distract you and negatively affect your work performance.  Simply receiving a notification can cause your mind to wander and/or consider what you may have to do next in the future depending on the notification.

If you want to prevent distraction and perform at your best, then put your phone on silent or shut it off so that you can’t hear, feel or see it.