One third of smartphone notifications make our mood worse, research shows
One third of smartphone notifications make our mood
worse, research shows
Notifications from work or system updates are
particularly bad from creating negative emotions
By Sarah Knapton, science editor 2 OCTOBER 2017 • 10:00PM
Smartphones were meant to make life easier, but a new
study suggests that one third of notifications which pop up cause a downturn in
our mood.
A team at Nottingham Trent University investigated the
effect on mood as 50 participants received thousands of digital alerts over a
five-week period.
Out of more than half a million notifications, they found
that 32 per cent resulted in negative emotions, triggering users to feel
hostile, upset, nervous, afraid or ashamed.
Notifications relating to non-human activity – such as
general phone updates and wifi availability – had the worst impact on phone
users’ mood, the researchers found.
Faceless updates from apps were the most frustrating
Work-related notifications also had a negative impact on
mood, particularly when they arrived in bulk.
However, in contrast, people enjoyed messages from
friends, particularly several at once, which created a sense of belonging and
feelings of connection to a social group.
“These digital alerts continuously disrupt our activities
through instant calls for attention,” said researcher Dr Eiman Kanjo.
“While notifications enhance the convenience of our life,
we need to better-understand the impact their obsessive use has on our
well-being.
“It is clear that social notifications make people happy,
but when they receive lots of work-related and or non-human notifications, the
opposite effect occurs.”
As part of the study, the researchers developed an app –
NotiMind – which participants downloaded to their phones. The app collected
details relating to the phone’s digital notifications, as well as participants’
self-reported moods at various points in the day over a five-week period.
The researchers say their findings show that it is possible
to predict phone users’ moods based on information they are receiving. In the
future they say it could be used to personalise notifications, so fewer system
notifications were sent when someone was feeling down, or more entertainment
features to boost mood.
Researcher Dr Daria Kuss, a psychologist in Nottingham
Trent University’s International Gaming Research Unit, added: “Although
notifications serve an important purpose for smartphone users, the number of
apps which compete for attention has grown significantly over the years.
People often respond quickly, if not immediately to
notifications, making them particularly disruptive. “Our findings could open
the door to a wide range of applications in relation to emotion awareness on
social and mobile communication.”
The research, is published in the journal IEEE Access.
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