It is well documented that talking on the phone or texting are associated with poorer performance on concurrently performed tasks, such as homework, but a new study suggests that "simply hearing your phone ring, ding or vibrate can destroy your focus," The Huffington Post reported.
Researchers at Florida State University found that push notifications that indicate a text or Facebook message can prompt task-irrelevant thoughts, or mind wandering.
"Our results suggest that mobile phones can disrupt attention performance even if one does not interact with the device," write the study's author, according to Mashable. "As mobile phones become integrated into more and more tasks, it may become increasingly difficult for people to set their phones aside and concentrate fully on the task at hand, whatever it may be."
For the study, researchers recruited more than 150 students to complete a "well-known test of sustained attentional performance," Mashable reported. Study participants took the test twice. The first time, they went through the test uninterrupted by their devices; the second time, some students' phones received calls or texts.
Everyone took the test twice: the first time, they did it uninterrupted by their devices; the second time, assistants placed calls or texts to some of the students' phones.
Researchers found that "performance on the assessment suffered if the student received any kind of audible notification," Mashable reported.
Researchers found that the level of distraction caused by every kind of phone distraction, from a sudden ping to a sustained ringtone, was comparable to texting while driving, The Huffington Post reported.
"We didn't expect to see such a large magnitude in distraction," Cary Stothart, who led the study, told The Huffington Post.
The findings are detailed in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
