Agencies-Gaza post
Study warns of silent mode on smartphones
A study warned that when you activate silent mode on smartphones, it could have some problems.
Study authors from the US state of Pennsylvania discovered that silent notifications can be “psychologically painful,” making smartphone users check their phones more than less, especially for people with a “fear of being lost”, and believe that their friends enjoy more in their absence.
The study published in Computers in Human Behaviour found its results after it surveyed more than 100 people about their use of smartphones, and whether they had notifications on or off.
Researchers collected behavioral data from 138 iPhone users in America at an average age of 36, giving them options to mute their phone with vibration (normal), silence without vibration (sound-only mode), and finally mute without vibration (silent mode).
Most participants chose vibration mode at only 42 percent, followed by 36.2 percent using normal mode, 13 percent using audio mode only, and 8.7 percent using silent mode.
Researchers discovered that those who silenced notifications altogether (no vibrations or voice signals), have the highest use of social media, and check or use their phones a lot.
The study group concluded that silencing notifications to people suffering from “fear of loss” and the need to belong “seems more” influential “on them at the psychological level.
The results of the new study run counter to those of another study published last month, which confirmed that disabling notifications was the best tactic to stop using the phone.
