The constant pings, vibrations and alerts transmitted via smartphones are causing the general population to experience symptoms typically associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia and the University of Virginia found that mobile notifications that alert smartphone users to new text messages, Facebook tags, Instagram likes and Tinder swipes are causing fidgeting, restlessness and difficulty sitting still.
The 221 students at UBC.
For one week, the students were asked to maximize smartphone interruptions by keeping notification alerts on and their phones within reach. During the second week of the study, the same participants were asked to minimize interruptions by keeping alerts off and their phones further away.
At the end of each week, participants completed questionnaires assessing inattention and hyperactivity. The results showed that the students experienced significantly higher levels of inattention and hyperactivity when alerts were turned on.
Even those who had not been diagnosed with ADHD experienced some symptoms linked with the disorder, such as distraction, difficulty focusing and getting bored easily when trying to focus, fidgeting, having trouble sitting still, difficulty doing quiet tasks and activities, and restlessness.
"Our findings suggest neither that smartphones can cause ADHD nor that reducing smartphone notifications can treat ADHD," study lead Kostadin Kushlev, a psychology research scientist at the University of Virginia said in a statement.
"The findings simply suggest that our constant digital stimulation may be contributing to an increasingly problematic deficit of attention in modern society."
The study was presented last week, at a in San Jose, Calif.
Kushlev pointed to recent polls that have shown many as 95 per cent of smartphone users have used their phones during social gatherings, seven in 10 people used their phones while working and one in 10 admitted to checking their phones during sex.
A showed that millennials spent, on average, three hours a day on their smartphones.
Kushlev said smartphone users can reduce the overstimulation caused by their devices by simply keeping them on silent and out of arm's reach, when possible.
