6 messages, 1 missed call. 81 degrees in San Diego, sunny. Due tomorrow: HW 10/7. The buzz of a phone is now the metronome that propels the rhythm of modern life. Notifications pile up at every hour: we wake up to stacks of them, we go to bed thinking about them.
Notifications have become the architecture of daily existence, controlling our attention, outsourcing our memory and taking up our energy and time. Unless we begin to evaluate this influence, we risk living by their cadence instead of our own. This omnipresence is long overdue for a pause and consideration.
The leading issue with notifications is that they place different priorities on the same level through audiovisual cues. Various productivity systems, including the Eisenhower Matrix, the ABCDE method and the “Rocks, Pebbles and Sand” method rely on a hierarchy, due to the importance of distinguishing the urgent from the trivial. However, on a phone screen, everything appears and sounds equal; a notice from a game, a text from a friend and an assignment deadline all trigger the same vibration and banner. In fact, entertainment-related, distracting notifications are at times more eye-catching. As a result, our tasks are flattened and we treat items associated with leisure with the same importance as more urgent emails and deadlines.
While it could be argued that not all notifications are identical in sound and appearance, and as a result are not truly equal, they undoubtedly have negative impacts on attention. With phones taken off silent mode, every sound and vibration draws attention away from the present moment, no matter the significance of the source. One study found evidence of smartphone notifications disrupting attention and cognitive control. Admittedly, effects were described as “small” and the study had certain limitations.
In part, we use notifications as a convenience. A meeting on Thursday, a message to respond to, a conference to schedule — these things are all easy to remember and address when they pop up on the screen. In the age of digitized systems, notifications often serve as memories, yet, this outsourcing of memory may have consequences. Notifications serve as reminders in a different way than schedules and productivity tools. By using to-do lists or agendas, humans organize memories and action items themselves. In contrast, when relying on notifications, little information is processed and thought out by the mind. In a review paper about outsourcing memory to external tools, researchers discuss the act of intention offloading, or using external strategies to support memories for delayed intentions. The review mentioned a 2020 study which shows that people often tend to set more reminders than optimal as a result of low confidence in their memory, sometimes explained with the desire to avoid cognitive effort.
Why does this matter? Often, we hear that the brain is a muscle and it must be exercised to maintain cognitive abilities. While nowhere near as impactful as technology such as artificial intelligence, notifications do contribute to the lessened exertion of cognitive effort. Perhaps, this, along with the busy, whirlwind-like nature of contemporary life, could induce a decline in prospective memory. Aside from speculation, what is already apparent is notifications as an explanation for failures in memory — missing a meeting because the calendar alert never showed up is a common excuse, and an often acceptable one at that. Such a trend indicates a broader shift in the perception of accountability and reliability as a result of the trust society places in technology. We must be cautious about this placement of trust — how it affects our time and thought — and the risk of normalizing unreliable use or success of technology as an excuse for failures in responsibility.
Also monumental is the impact of the notification on energy. First, each notification is equivalent to at least one decision: to address the notification or not. This decision may lead to a chain of other decisions: what to respond to, how long to engage with the new subject of attention, when to come back to the abandoned item. It is a well-established concept that making decisions drains energy, a term known as decision fatigue. But this energy drain does not only come from decisions, it also comes from blurred and jumbled spheres of life. The existence of the notification represents the encroachment, most notably, of the work and social sphere into the personal sphere. Getting off work often means working for at least another hour at home. Saying goodbye to a friend after hanging out often means texting them minutes later. You may not be physically present, but to the things and people that request your attention, you are just one notification away. Silence is never truly silent; time spent with one’s self is never truly time spent alone. This quality and its energy-draining properties, similar to that of other social networking technologies like social media, can have adverse psychoemotional consequences, as indicated in a study that required participants to disable notification alerts for 24 hours. In some sense, we have relinquished control over what we allow to encroach into our moments of rest and recovery; this influence only continues to grow.
Notifications have subtly rewritten the tempo of our days and nights, and our use of attention, memory and energy, drastically altering how we engage with others and the world. This is not necessarily negative, as they add some level of information, organization and interconnection to our lives. But their constant presence deserves reflection. Managing them is a solution: customizing them, disabling them for certain times in the day, setting specific times to check them or even just being conscious of one’s relationship with them. Finding a balance with technology requires trial and error for each individual. But in the end, technology was made to support humanity. It should never control us.
