Notifications: Are they Controlling You?

You’re mid conversation, mid study session, or mid meal, and ding! A notification lights up your screen. Without thinking, you pick up your phone to see what or who came through. Sound familiar? Don’t worry – you're not alone. 

Phones are designed to grab out attention. In fact, the average person checks their phone 58 times a day (https://explodingtopics.com/blog/smartphone-usage-stats). Those little red dots in the corner of apps on your home screen and buzzing alerts trigger a hit of dopamine, the brains ‘reward’ chemical, which is the same hormone released when we eat our favourite food or win something important. That helps explain why it feels impossible to ignore them! 

The problem with this is that these constant interruptions don’t just eat up our time, even if it is only a few seconds to check what came through, but they also break our focus. Studies show it takes over 20 minutes to refocus after a distraction