“Distraction, difficulty focusing, having trouble sitting still and restlessness.”
Do these sound familiar to you? You might be on your phone too much.
Smartphones are an integral part of daily life for most people.
Checking your notifications is just another task, one which some of us do every few minutes. There’s always that one friend who never has their phone out of their hand for fear that they might miss out on something vitally important, whether that’s breaking news or a Tinder message from someone they have their eye on.
Looking at our devices every few minutes has become ingrained in many of us, but it could be doing our attention spans a great deal of damage.
According to Wired, a study from the University of Virginia is claiming that the stereotype of the millennial with zero ability to concentrate may actually be rooted in truth.
The study found that smartphone notifications apparently cause ADHD-like symptoms among the general population. The research was presented at the Human-Computer Interaction conference in California, examining 221 college students.
More participants reported more symptoms of an attention deficiency when their notifications were turned on, by having their phone on vibrate or ring.
According to the researchers:
“The findings simply suggest that our constant digital stimulation may be contributing to an increasingly problematic deficit of attention in modern society.”
So, maybe it’s best for your brain to keep your smartphone on silent when you need to focus.
