If you're a fan of silent mode on your smartphone, you should know that this practice says a lot about you. This is what several behavioral and psychological studies have revealed.
Today, we are bombarded with notifications coming from all directions on our smartphones: social networks, news, games, reminders and alerts, streaming platforms, etc. So many sound signals that call us back to our phone, and which can seriously harm our concentration and our peace of mind... And those of others.
So, to avoid being disturbed every 30 seconds, you may have become, by force of circumstance, or by choice, a fan of Silent mode or Do Not Disturb mode. However, if we believe our colleagues at the site Sain et Naturel (via Ouest France), Silent mode aficionados generally share very specific behaviors and psychological profiles. We explain everything.
Also read: Are you receiving too many notifications in a row and it's distracting you? Activate this new Android 15 option
The different behaviors observed among Silent mode pros
A need to stay focused
For many Silent mode enthusiasts, this practice represents first and foremost a way to stay focused on the task they are trying to accomplish. Or maintain what is called the concept of flow, this state of absolute focus that we can experience when we concentrate strongly and long enough on something.
According to a study published in 2022 on the National Library of Medicine, notifications from our smartphones can disrupt this state and greatly harm our ability to concentrate. Concretely, the authors of this study proved that notifications and other sound alerts reduced the reaction time of candidates. In addition, people with a greater propensity for smartphone addiction demonstrated a poorer ability to maintain their attention.
Increased sensitivity to noise
Another surprising aspect, Psychoascous research published in 2015 in Sage Journals found that people who are sensitive to noise are generally more likely to:
- feel stressed more easily when unexpected sounds arise, including from their phone
- take longer to answer a call or message
- isolate themselves to start a phone conversation
- feel more uncomfortable when a phone rings in a public place
The study also explains that these sudden sounds can cause an increase in heart rate, a spike in cortisol (editor's note: the stress hormone) and a decrease in short-term memory capacity. Consequently, for these people, Silent mode becomes a bulwark against noise pollution, “a sensory regulation tool, allowing intrusive auditory stimuli to be filtered out”according to Sain et Naturel.
A desire to control one's digital consumption
For others, Silent Mode also represents a way to balance their digital consumption and combat the famous FOMO syndrome (Fear of Missing Out). In 2022, a study called The Sound of Silence looked at the impact of Silent Mode on behavior.
For two weeks, one group of participants was required to turn off all notifications on their iPhones. The other had their ringtone turned on. Overall, the subjects in the first group reported feeling more focused, and therefore less inclined to look at their phones.
Effectiveness to put into perspective
Be careful, however, the authors point out that Silent Mode is clearly not the perfect remedy for everyone to limit/combat their smartphone addiction. On the contrary, it can produce the opposite effect in some people, particularly those susceptible to FOMO and NTB syndromes (Need to Belong, or the need to maintain constant social connections, particularly via social networks). “Silencing notifications seems to be more, rather than less, psychologically painful for them,” the researchers assure.
Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania also questioned the effectiveness of Silent mode for getting off the phone. On this occasion, they asked 138 users to divide themselves into three groups. One had to activate the ring mode, the second the vibrate mode, and the last, the silent mode.
Then, they had to keep this mode activated on their phone for 4 days. Their smartphone use was obviously observed under a microscope. As a result, users in silent mode checked their phones the most: 98.2 times per day, compared to 52.9 for those in vibrate mode. Again, the researchers cited FOMO as a partial explanation for these figures.
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