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Visual Alerts Actually Make You Less Productive, Study Says

by Amar Toor on December 10, 2009 at 04:10 PM

Alert notifications have turned the average PC desktop into a collage of digital post-its. Be it Facebook telling us about a new ditty written on our wall or a reminder about an office meeting in 10 minutes, visual alerts exist, in theory, to help us deal with the pandemonium of everyday life. They're supposed to keep us on top of things, up to date, and organized. A new study, however, suggests that these little reminders may actually do the exact opposite.

According to the study, conducted by Helen Hodgetts at the University of Cardiff in the UK, the alerts are at least making us less productive. Research found that IM alerts and notifications can seriously distract us from more important things... like work. As Hodgetts said in an interview with LiveScience, "E-mail notifications and instant messages all cause a break in focus of the task in hand, even if they are attended to only very briefly. We might find ourselves needing a few moments to regather our thoughts, and remember what it was that we were about to do before we switched our attention to the interrupting on-screen notification."

As an alternative, Hodgetts suggests using auditory reminders, like chimes, instead of visual ones. That way, you'll at least be able to register the reminder without something popping up on your screen. We're not sure bell and whistle reminders would be a radical change -- a distraction is a distraction. The choice is either to keep your finger permanently pressed to the pulse of your digital existence or get stuff done. To us, the answer seems obvi -- oooh, new friend on Facebook!.... Wait, where were we? [From: LiveScience, via: Web Worker Daily]

Tags: growl, productivity, research, top, visual alerts, VisualAlerts, work

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