Smartphone Notifications Fragment Attention More Than We Thought
A new field study quantifies how interleaved notifications degrade sustained focus — even when users do not consciously check their phones.
Brain Geek News DeskJune 10, 2026Source: JAMA Network Open
A new field study finds that the mere presence of notifications — visible, audible, or even silent — measurably degrades sustained attention over a working session.
Participants who silenced notifications and stowed their phones out of sight performed roughly 20% better on a focus task than those who kept devices on the desk.
The authors recommend treating attention like a finite resource and physically removing common interrupters during deep work.
FocusAttention
More Brain News
All news →
NEWSMind & Psychology
July 7, 2026
Helping a Waiter Clear the Table May Reveal More Than Simple Politeness
That instinctive gesture at the end of a restaurant meal can reflect empathy, cooperation and awareness of another person's effort — but psychologists caution against reading a whole personality from a single act.
Read News
NEWSLearning & Memory
July 7, 2026
Learning Another Language Could Make Your Brain More Efficient
Managing two languages forces the brain to constantly select relevant words and suppress competing ones — a subtle daily workout for cognitive control and information processing.
Read News
NEWSMind & Psychology
July 7, 2026
Why Can We Write Things We Could Never Say Out Loud?
Writing removes immediate social pressure, giving the brain more time to organize thoughts, regulate emotions and turn difficult internal experiences into language.
Read News