Context: Y-values represent my level of pleasantness. 50 means I'm delighted while 0 means I'm in a volataile mood. X-values are the hours in which I recorded this data, spanning 8 hours in total. The radius of each dot represent the intensity of the emotion. (Btw, hover your mouse over the dots. The third value shown is the radius of the circle)
This graph is special because the dip shown between hours 7-8 is directly caused by notifications. I got pinged on discord and some horrible person attached a gorey video to the message. I'm in a server dedicated to a game, which means most of the members are young teens. I immediately recognized the video and pinged the mods, luckily the video was taken down in a matter of seconds. This specific event caused me a lot of stress because I'm friends with some of the kids on there and the last thing I want is for them to be scarred by the same things I was.
In addition to this, I found that I immediately got distracted the moment my phone screen lit up. I tested myself a couple times to see if I could ignore my phone if it was flashing, but I failed because my notifications don't actually tell me what I'm being notified of. I have to unlock my phone to see what's so important, which isn't good considering I can't tell when someone is trying to message me.
The biggest takeaway from my experience was that my mood stabilized when I wasn't bothered by notifications. I felt less anxiety, less obligation to pick up my phone and see what was going on. It wasn't like my focus was being ripped from me unless I started to use my phone.
It was much easier for me to finish tasks that I assigned myself. For example, I found that I spent more time drawing and felt more accomplished. Sometimes I get frustrated during the process because I'll feel as if I'm taking too long, which is plain ignorance on my part because I would've drawn faster if I didn't get lost reading my notifs. It's a struggle for me to keep my attention on something for long and muting notifs made me realize how many distractions I have in my life. After this experiment, I'm definitely going to tailor what pops up on my screen from now on.
Also, I made this website to flex.