A study has concluded that turning on phone notifications can be as dangerous as texting while driving or crossing the streets.
Huffington Post reports that a study conducted by researchers from Florida State University states that hearing a phone ring, beep or vibrate can destroy focus. With the trend of getting phone notifications from different applications such as social media sites, Facebook and Instagram, different news updates, and game alerts, researchers found out that even just a short phone vibrate distracts people from a more important task.
The leader of the study, Cary Stothart told Huffington Post that it is "getting worse with notifications."
"We didn't expect to see such a large magnitude in distraction," the cognitive psychology doctoral student added.
In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 150 undergraduate students were tested on their focus by simply assigning them to look at the screen and press a button every time they see the number "3".
Divided on three different groups, one team was called on their phones, another team receives a text message, and the last team wasn't distracted. Researchers were able to get their numbers through an information sheet without informing respondents about the plans to distract them.
Results show that getting phone calls mostly destroys focus with 28% of its respondents failing their tasks. 23% of those who received a text also did not pass the focus test, while only 7% of those not distracted failed due to boredom.
Researchers explained that since phone calls mostly occur during emergencies, being it increasingly rare may have caused the majority of distraction.
They added that almost 100% of students set their phones to vibrate and did not take their devices out while the study was on-going.
Experts advise people to turn off their notifications or set their phone to "Do Not Disturb" when driving, crossing the streets or in any situation that requires people to fully focus.
