Cell phone notifications may be life-threatening, report
Posted on: 26/Jul/2015 9:13:26 AM
In this era of cell phones, most of us are alert about the notifications received in our cell phones. We in fact get distracted by these notifications which in turn creates trouble in our focus towards other works.
According to a new study by the Florida State University, it is said that we get hugely distracted by any kind of notification, be it a trendy ringtone, alarm bell, a minute vibration, or any notification of any sort. This further reduces our focus on the task that we have been into.
It is in fact shocking to know how far we get affected by such notifications, says Courtney Yehnert who was a part of the study during his undergraduate studies before finishing his graduation in 2014.
Cary Stothart who is a psychology doctoral student is the study`s lead author. He is the very first to study the effect of cell phone notifications on the performance of one in his task. The co-authors of the study are FSU postdoctoral researcher Ainsley Mitchum and Yehnert.
When looked at the time duration of these tasks, it may be very short, however they induce thoughts irrelevant to the task the person is engaged to, and leads to mind-wandering which together damages the task performance.
Despite not being in direct interaction with the mobile device, there is a huge disruption created by cell phones mainly affecting tasks that are attention-demanding.
This finding by the study is highly important as most of the public information campaigns about troublesome use of cell phones emphasizes one`s wait for messages or calls.
According to Stothart, there may be a severe or in fact a life-threatening effect if the person gets distracted at the wrong time.
Suggestions by the result:
The result suggests people to keep their mobile phone either muted or turned off or keep it inside in silent mode at the time of driving.
The reports were published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
