Every phone ping takes 7 seconds of your attention — here’s how to get it back | Tech Radar

Overview

News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest smartphones

News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets

Details

Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more

Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards.

Every phone ping takes 7 seconds of your attention — here’s how to get it back

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Unlock instant access to exclusive member features.

Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.

A new study has found that each notification can distract you for around seven seconds

The more personally relevant the notification is, the more distracting it is

Phones have tools to help address this, such as focus modes and other settings

You probably don’t need a study to tell you that smartphone notifications can be distracting, but it seems they’re even more distracting than you might think.

According to a new report that will be published in the June issue of the journal Computers in Human Behavior (via CNET), every time you get a message notification on your phone, it interrupts your attention for around seven seconds. Given how many notifications you likely get in a day — with study participants for example receiving around 100 a day — that can really add up.

The study consisted of getting 180 university students to do a Stroop task — that being a test that involves colored words flashing on a screen. The words spell one color and appear in another, and the goal is to correctly identify the font color, ignoring what’s written.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra's Privacy Display could hold a social problem

7 settings I change on every Apple Watch for a 'calmer, clearer, and more useful' experience

7 privacy tips for your Android device to avoid prying eyes

Researchers split participants into three groups — one which received generic social media notifications on the screen while carrying out the test, one which was told the notifications mirrored those on their phone, and one which had blurred notifications appearing with illegible text.

The i Phone 17 Pro has Focus modes to limit notifications (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

In all cases, it was found that each notification affected their attention for around seven seconds, but the effect was most pronounced among the group who believed the notifications mirrored those on their phone — showing that more personally relevant notifications are more distracting.

Hippolyte Fournier, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and the study's first author, told CNET that "we observed that both the volume of notifications and how often individuals check their smartphones were linked to greater disruption."

"This pattern suggests that the fragmented nature of smartphone use, rather than simply total usage duration, may be a key factor in understanding how digital technologies influence attentional processes."

So how to address this? One obvious answer is to limit the ability for notifications to reach you. On i Phone, this can be done through Focus modes, which let you customize which apps will send notifications when a specific mode (such as ‘work’ or ‘sleep’) is active.

Depending on your Android phone you may have similar tools there too, such as the Digital Wellbeing tools (which also includes focus modes) on Pixel phones, or a basic Do Not Disturb setting.

If there are some apps that you never want notifications from, you could also permanently disable notifications for specific apps, through that app’s section of your phone’s settings menu.

I’ve disabled this i OS 26 Apple Intelligence feature, and you probably should too

Focused work in a distracted world — my one secret weapon for staying on task

These 7 hidden i OS features have transformed how I use my i Phone

You may also want to look into how notifications are displayed, with many phones allowing you to choose how prominent they are or where they appear — these options are typically found in the notifications section of a phone’s settings menu.

You could also distance yourself from your phone, putting it in another room for example when you’re working, though if you’re wearing a smartwatch that won’t stop notifications appearing on your wrist, and while the study didn’t look at wearables, we’d imagine the impact is similar.

Follow Tech Radar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

And of course you can also follow Tech Radar on Tik Tok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on Whats App too.

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at Tech Radar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

1 The PS5 Pro shot up Amazon's best seller list after recent price hike announcement

2 Amazon just launched the biggest Yeti sale I've seen — up to 30% off dozens of coolers, water bottles and travel mugs

3 Keep your data safe and save big with these top NAS deals for World Backup Day 2026

4 Netflix is adding 3 unmissable thriller movies in April 2026 — and fans of creature features will be pleased

5'This Internxt deal is as close as you'll get to free lifetime cloud storage': Our top cloud storage for security just cut the price by 90% when you use this link

Tech Radar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.