Life has gotten pretty hectic. It is no surprise to find yourself stressed, confused and lost from time to time. There is too much of everything – information, people, events. It is hard to share yourself and your attention between important and less important things.
Not looking at your phone for an hour might seem like the end of the world for the younger generation but it is a symptom called FOMO – the fear of missing out. With social media, we are always available and online. When one pauses it, it might seem as the world has changed and she/he has missed the train already.
When before it was important to be in places and meet people in real life, nowadays it is important to see the best viral videos and to be in the group conversation. Also, the age in which a person gets a smartphone decreases with every year.
This “being online lifestyle” has its bad effects as well. First of all, people are not living in the present moment anymore, and secondly, they cannot concentrate. If you want to improve your concentration and be able to remember the things you read, heard or saw, you ought to think about turning off the notifications on your phone.
A new study found out that turning off your phone’s notifications for 24 hours improves concentration and decreases overall stress.
This study was conducted in Carnegie Mellon in 2015. The scientist found 30 participants, who agreed to turn off their notifications for 24 hours. At first, they wanted to study the effect of turning notifications off for the full week, but no participant agreed to that extended period.
So after 24 hours of not seeing any warnings, the participants found it easier to concentrate and also said that they felt less stress.
There was also a negative side about the results. Many participants reported feeling anxious about missing their messages and important notifications. That is exactly what has mentioned above – FOMO (fear of missing out). Nevertheless, the anxiety did not influence the participants’ level of stress.
The scientist contacted the participants 2 years later. They managed to find 22 of 30 original members, and when they asked about their overall views on the use of the phone, many of them said that these have completely changed and also, they have changed their behavior around the smartphones.
In conclusion, the scientists say that even though smartphones can be very beneficial and useful to use for us, we should have some limits. The human mind is easy to manipulate and unfortunately using too much, or too often your phone might make you stress, less concentrated and ill in the end.
