Guide
Notifications and focus: what one buzz costs.
You do not have to pick up the phone for it to break your concentration. In one experiment, simply receiving a notification was enough to throw people off.
In short. In an experiment, simply receiving a phone notification disrupted people's performance on an attention task, by about as much as actively using a phone does. Fewer notifications is the fix, not a better device: let people through, and make everything else wait.
What the experiment found
Researchers gave people a task that needs steady attention, and some of them received phone notifications during it. A notification alone was enough to disrupt their performance, even though they did not touch the phone. The size of the disruption was comparable to the effects seen when people actively use a phone for calls or text messages.
The study measured performance, not why it dropped. (Why every switch between tasks costs time: is multitasking a myth?) A notification starts a question you cannot answer until you look: who was it, does it matter? For a few moments, part of your attention goes there.
Settings that help
- People, not apps. Allow calls and messages from people; switch off notifications from shops, news, games and social apps.
- A short list of people who always get through. Both iPhone (Focus) and Android (Do Not Disturb) let you set exceptions.
- Email at fixed times. Two or three times a day, not every time something arrives. Or let something sort it for you: an AI email assistant.
- Badges off. The red numbers are notifications that do not stop.
- Out of sight while you work. Face down still lights up; another room does not.
In meetings the same rules apply, and other people notice: phones in meetings.
Every buzz costs, ours too
Every buzz costs attention, ours too. That is why Lychnos Ring is designed to buzz only for what you choose: a person you named, a reminder you set, the answer you asked for. Everything else waits until you ask. It is in development, and it makes no health claims. The idea behind it: calm technology. And if you feel a buzz that was not there, see phantom vibrations.
To cut them down on your own phone, step by step: fewer notifications on iPhone and Android.
Source, read 4 November 2026: Stothart, Mitchum and Yehnert, “The attentional cost of receiving a cell phone notification”, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2015.
Questions
Should I turn off all notifications?
You do not have to. Keep the few that need you now, such as calls and messages from people and reminders you set yourself, and let the rest wait for a time you choose.
Do watch or ring notifications distract less?
Any notification takes attention, on any device, ours included. A device on your body helps only if it lets through less.