Turning off your phone addiction only takes one day, research says

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They say it takes on average 60 days for a person to form a habit, however a new research has shown that 24 hours are enough to alter the behavior of phone users.

Every time people look at their smart handsets, they are bombarded with a slew of notifications from applications that are at once overwhelming and highly sought after.

In the age of technology and information it has become inevitable to keep looking at our phones to check breaking news, read incoming instant messages and keep up with the updates from the seemingly never-ending social media feeds. And when the phone doesn't buzz, some frantically gaze at their screens in search for a reason of why nothing is happening.

Having a phone at hand means having to deal with constant distraction, but a new study has probed the possibility of altering the behavior of phone users with the aim of increasing their productivity.

Of the participants who were asked to switch off the notification function on their phones for 24 hours, two-thirds said they would stop the disturbing habit of consistently looking at their devices.

Martin Pielot of Spanish telecommunications firm Telefónica and Luz Rello of Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, created a "Do Not Disturb" challenge in order to test what will happen when people get rid of their app notifications for 24 hours.

Thirty people volunteered to take part in the experiment.

Without disturbance from their phones, participants expressed more anxiety about losing connection with the messages they usually receive and reply to. However, they also got less distracted and more productive.

The findings of the experiment will be presented at a conference on human-computer interaction next month in Austria.

Half of the volunteers said they had been planning to turn off the app notification function for two years, without bringing themselves to do it. The research gave them an opportunity to say goodbye to their phone addiction as the findings showed that two-thirds of them kept the good habit after the study was over.

“If you have notifications constantly grabbing your attention, we know that you are more likely to make mistakes and you are less likely to get stuff done,” Anna Cox of the University College told New Scientist.

And that is why researchers need to find ways to keep people away from their app notifications.

People do not really have to switch off their phones for as long as a day, according to Cox. Creating a small obstacle that would make receiving notifications a little bit harder, like turning off email notifications when hanging out with a friend, will also help.

“People check social media all the time without even thinking just because it's right there on your phone,” said Cox.

“Anything that makes that just a little bit harder can help you avoid the bad habit.”

(CGTN's Zhou Jingwen contributed to the story)