Notifications frequently disturb us as we are doing any task.  Recently, a friend of mine was complaining about how one of his friends sent him a message and its notification woke him up in the middle of the night.  I thought to myself why hadn’t he simply turned off his phone or silenced the notifications from that app in the late night?

Also, I was in church recently, and I saw a person in front of me on his cell phone the entire service.  He did not stop texting on his phone from the moment I got there up until the service was over.  He was not a youngling either.  I do not know why he was texting the whole time, but I felt pity for him; he clearly did not have perception of where he was because of this; he lost out on the experience of being present in his place.

Both these stories reflect the disturbances and interruptions of life that instant notifications often cause.

If we continue paying attention to our notifications as and when they go off, then we will experience five losses that will become regular parts of our lives:

1. Losing Sleep

My friend lost his sleep because he does not turn off his phone or at least silence the messaging app at night.  He blamed his friend, but in reality he had full control over this situation.  Setting your notifications to alert you immediately especially through sound can take your sleep and rest from you.  In the end, you will have low energy throughout the day for your family, your work, and your interests.

2. Losing People Time

One time I was sitting in a hotel lobby in San Diego, and I saw thirteen childhood friends sitting next to each other in a big circle right next to the fireplace.  All of them were sitting with her heads down looking straight at their phones and not saying a word to each other; they were totally preoccupied with their phones.  To be honest, it bothered me.  We will not always be around those who are near to us forever, and we need to value them.  No type of digital communication or interaction can ever make up for face-to-face human conversations and interactions especially when you have people sitting right next to you.

3. Losing Peace

These constant distractions of notifications will cause you to lose your peace.  You may sit down to read a book, but a notification will go off; you must go check it.  You may go on a date with your loved one, but a notification will go off; you must go check it.  You may sit down with close friends or family, but a notification will go off; you must go check it.  In the end, it is just informing you that your game has reset its free points.  What then?  You will have lost the things that are most important in life.  These constant interruptions of flow will cause you to lose your peace.

4. Losing Flow

In psychology, there is a concept called Flow.  Flow is what happens when we become so absorbed in an activity that poses a challenge to our skills that we lose sense of our physical and temporal immediacy, and we become totally focused on a task.  Flow is a major contributor to happiness.  In an article titled, “Living in Flow,” Dr. Ilona Boniwell discusses the concept of Flow and lists the tasks that often lead to Flow, which include hobbies and the arts and “socialising, studying, reading and, very often, working.”  In addition, she lists the activities that often do not lead to Flow, and these include “Housework, idling and resting. Also, in the vast majority of cultures, people don’t associate watching TV with optimal experience.”  This means that the quality of our work and hobbies will suffer.

Constant interruptions are directly opposed to Flow, and if Flow contributes to happiness, then these interruptions will also take our happiness from us.

5. Losing Ourselves

To a very large degree we are defined by the people physically around us and where we live.  For example, a farmer lives in a rural area surrounded by other farmers in quiet regions.  A farmer cannot live in a large metropolitan city with no empty land.  He would cease to be a farmer because a farmer is defined by the empty, wide-open land that he cultivates.  In a similar way each and every one of us is defined by where we physically live and those whom we are around.  Checking each notification immediately causes us to slowly lose this identity because we no longer mentally remain in our physical place, but we drift back and forth between virtual interactions and real interactions.

So, with all that said, please turn the notification off (unless there is an urgent reason); train yourself to look at your phone only at certain times throughout the day.  You should choose when to give it attention; do not let it take you out of what you are already doing at the moment.

Have you experienced any of the above five losses due to immediate checking of notifications?  Have you ever rushed to check your phone only to see that it was notifying you of a reset of game points? How did you feel? Have you been able to stop the interruptions and keep them in your control?