A Common Sense Media report finds about half of 11- to 17-year-olds get at least 237 notifications a day. Some get nearly 5,000 in 24 hours. What does that do to their brains?
A Common Sense Media report finds about half of 11- to 17-year-olds get at least 237 notifications a day. Some get nearly 5,000 in 24 hours. What does that do to their brains?
As an adult, we do too, and it also negatively impacts us. When I left the other social platforms I took the time to uninstall or disable many notifications, I now receive a total of 5 a day on average. It’s good to see these conversations happening though, whether we react and change though only time will tell.
I wonder whether emails, slack/discord notifications, chatrooms for work/study/play, … are the equivalent to social media notifications for adults.
We can try to break it down a little. Work notifications are not very exciting, so it probably doesn’t give us a dopamine hit, however the notifications could be stressful if they are always about work and timelines. Study might be beneficial, it really depends on if it is a reminder or wants us to perform an action. Play varies widely, from a notification that a friend is or wants to play a game, to a developer has posted their weekly digest of what’s been happening, these tend to give us dopamine as well as they can be interesting to learn about what’s happening.