Smartphone Notification Creates Symptoms Similar To ADHD, Study Finds

The millennials are slammed by the older generations for not being able to give attention like the old folks and the term ADHD is just thrown into table while having a casual discussion about how technology is distracting us. But the new reports emerging have suggested that smart phones notifications create symptoms similar to ADHD.

In the study conducted by the University of British Colombia, it was seen that smartphones notifications create symptoms in adults which is similar to that of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

The report titled “Silence Your Phones”: Smartphone Notifications Increase Inattention and Hyperactivity Symptoms shows the perils of curiosity about notification attached with smartphone use in adults.

Smart phones and ADHD: https://t.co/N2Aesyj79i

— Heather Zeiger (@hzeiger) May 10, 2016

The study was conducted in two-hundred and twenty-one undergraduate students with average age 19.89 among them 73.76% were female. More importantly, students were recruited from the university’s general participant pool, rather than from a pool of students diagnosed with ADHD.

They calculated their sample size based on a priori analyses with 80% probability of detecting small effects to precisely calculate how frequently people felt interrupted by their smartphones. They prescreened participants for smartphone ownership so all participants had a smart phone.

Participants attended an introductory session in the lab in groups of up to 10 students. Before assigning them to experimental condition, the group of researchers assessed their main measures of interest at baseline, including phone interruptions, inattention and hyperactivity, as well as productivity and psychological well-being.

Participants were then assigned to condition using a randomized counterbalanced within-subjects design. Half the participants were assigned to minimize interruptions for one week and then to maximize interruptions for a second week. For the other half of the participants, the order of these instructions was reversed.

In the Do-Not-Interrupt condition, participants configured their smartphones to Do-Not-Disturb settings, disabling auditory (e.g., ring), tactile (i.e., vibration) and visual alerts (i.e., LED flashes). In order to prevent participants from compensating by monitoring incoming notifications on their screens, the researchers additionally asked them to keep their phones out of sight (e.g., in their bags, pockets).

If Adults Can Carry Smart Phones, Why Can’t Kids with ADD and ADHD? https://t.co/2UUAVwAae7

— Jonathan Carroll, MA (@ADHDGuru) October 28, 2015

In the Interrupt condition, participants configured their phones to enable auditory, tactile, and/or visual alerts. Additionally, participants kept their phones within their sight and/or reach. In situations where their phones may be disruptive to others like in a class or a meeting. Participants in this condition were instructed to use common sense and to switch off audible alerts if necessary. Even in such situations,the participants were instructed to have their phones at least on vibrate mode.

After introductory session, each participant was given a sheet detailing how to configure his or her phone to the assigned settings; the sheet contained information about the most common smartphones in the market.
The participants were sent daily online surveys in the evening on each of the next six days. During the first day of the second week, participants were sent a prompt via email to change their phone settings as shown on their instructions sheets. Then, for each of the following six days, participants again received links to complete daily surveys. In the first five surveys of each week, the researchers assessed how frequently people felt interrupted by their phones during a specified one-hour period of the day.

This measure served as the basis of their manipulation check. On the seventh and last day of each week, participants received a longer survey asking them to report how they felt over the past week. This survey contained their main variables of interest, including inattention and hyperactivity, productivity, and psychological well-being. At the end of the two weeks, participants returned to the lab to be debriefed in person.

To measure inattention and hyperactivity (both at baseline and at the end of each week of the study), participants rated the extent to which they experienced 18 symptoms over the past week (1–never; 2–rarely; 3–sometimes; 4–often).

During the week with constant notifications, the group reported a higher level of distraction and anxiousness than they did when their notifications were shut off. The study group also complained about inattentiveness and boredom. What was surprising was that none of the individuals studied had actually been diagnosed with ADHD before.

Lead researcher Kostadin Kushlev told VICE that his team hypothesized the results could have gone either way—acknowledging the possibility that shutting off notifications might cause people to check their phone more out of a feeling of uneasiness, or worry about missing a message or email. This, of course, didn’t happen: Silence actually made it easier for people to focus on their work.

“It’s important to be clear that we’re not saying smartphones cause ADHD itself—there’s been no research on that,” he told VICE. “What can be said is that it can [exacerbate symptoms] of hyperactivity.”

[Photo by Pixabay]

Smartphone Notification Creates Symptoms Similar To ADHD, Study Finds is an article from: The Inquisitr News