A new study published in Computers in Human Behavior suggests that receiving a smartphone notification disrupts a person’s concentration for about seven seconds. The research provides evidence that the frequency of checking a phone and the volume of notifications received are better predictors of this distraction than total daily screen time. These findings indicate that fragmented digital habits play a significant role in how technology affects human attention. While previous experiments have shown that notifications impair task performance, these studies often used artificial alerts that did not reflect real-world conditions. Many past studies also failed to track the exact temporal duration of the distraction or isolate the underlying psychological mechanisms. The researchers wanted to separate the different reasons a notification might capture attention. They aimed to determine if distraction is caused simply by the visual suddenness of a pop-up, a concept known as perceptual salience. They also wanted to see if distraction stems from learned habits, known as conditioning, or from the personal relevance of the message. “People receive a very large number of smartphone …