Will You Become More Focused When Your Smartphone Is Turned On Silent?

With the rapid rise of smartphone usage in recent years,smartphones have become an integral part of our lives and also brought a series of problems,this study focused on the negative impact of smartphone notification’s sound.Previous study suggested that smartphone notifications have a negative effect on cognitive function,productivity and happiness,little research has verified the influence mechanism of smartphone notifications on attention vigilance.The purpose of this study was to explore the moderating roles of smartphone addiction and emotional valence on the relationship between smartphone notification’s sound and attention vigilance among College students and how to reduce the negative impact of smartphone notification’s sound.There were three sub-studies in this study to explore whether smartphone notification’s sound would affect College students’ attention vigilance and what type of smartphone notification’s sound had the most influence on College students’ attention vigilance and howto reduce the negative influence of smartphone notification’s sound on College students’ attention vigilance.The study 1 was to investigate the influence of smartphone notification’s sound on attention vigilance of College students.A total of 40 College students participated in this study and they were asked to finish the adapted cue-target paradigm.The results showed that the attention vigilance of College students whose smartphone notification’ sound were turned on ringing was significantly worse than those whose smartphone notification’ sound were turned on silent.The study 2 aimed to explore the moderating roles of smartphone addiction and emotional valence on the relationship between smartphone notification’s sound and attention vigilance among College students.There were 35 College students participated in this study and they were asked to finish the auditory version of cue target task.The results showed that the moderating effect of smartphone addiction was not significant and the College students have attention vigilance to positive smartphone notification’s sound,while they have attention detachment difficulty to negative smartphone notification’s sound.On the basis of the previous two studies,the third study further explored the moderating roles of smartphone notification’s sound management strategy and smartphone notification’s expectation on attention vigilance.There were 68 College students participated in this study and they were asked to watch and learn a 20-minute video of a lecture.After watching the video,they need to complete the learning test and the cue target task.The results showed that,when the smartphone notification’ sound were turned on ring,the individuals who did not expect to be notified by the smartphone reduced the number of times they looked at the smartphone,picked up and used it,and also performed better on learning test during the 10-15 minute study period.And when the smartphone notification’ sound were turned on ringing,the College students overestimated their level of effort and concentration in the lecture video.These findings indicated that the mere presence of smartphone notification’ sound had effect on College students’ attention vigilance,and the effect of College students’attention vigilance was moderated by emotional valence.And the College students have attention vigilance to positive smartphone notification’s sound,while they have attention detachment difficulty to negative smartphone notification’s sound.Further studies demonstrated that when the College students’ smartphones were turned on ringing,the task performance of College students whose were not expected to be notified were significantly better than those in the control group on learning test during the 10-15 minute study period and they are fewer distractions throughout the whole lecture video.This study improved their attention and task performance of College students by reducing psychological expectation,and provided an empirical basis for reducing the influence of smartphone interference.