Blocking Phone Alerts For Just One Day Can Change Your Habits For Years

把手机提醒关闭一天，可以改变你未来几年的行为习惯

Almost half of the participants in a study who were asked to switch off their phone notifications for a day said it was still influencing their habits two years later – so maybe dealing with your phone addiction isn't as difficult as you think.

即使已经过去2年了，超过一半的受试者依然声称他们的日常行为在受到这个实验的影响——所以，与手机依赖症作斗争可能并没有你想象的那么难。

Just a day away from the pings and buzzes can make a difference, say the researchers behind the new study.

主导这项研究的研究者说：即使只是离开这些提醒音一天，也能有非常大的效果。

They also found participants felt less distracted and more productive during the 24 hours of abstinence.

他们还发现：受试者在这24小时的节制期间感到更不容易分心、更有创造力了。

To begin with, Martin Pielot from telecommunications firm Telefónica in Spain, and Luz Rello of Carnegie Mellon University, wanted to extend their Do Not Disturb challenge across a whole week – but they couldn't find anyone to take part for that length of time.

西班牙移动通讯公司Telefonica的马丁·皮埃罗和卡耐基梅隆大学的路兹·雷优本来想把这场实验的长度设定为1周，但他们根本找不到愿意参加这么长时间的人。

"We just got empty, horrified stares," Pielot told Timothy Revell at New Scientist. "And so eventually we backed down to 24 hours."

“我们得到的只有那些人空洞、惊恐的眼神，”皮埃罗向《新科学家》的提摩西·雷沃说到，“所以我们最终缩短到24小时。”

Pielot and Rello found that the responses to a day away from alerts varied a lot: for people who didn't check their phones that much anyway, it wasn't such a big deal.

皮埃罗和雷优发现，对于把提醒音关闭一天这件事，大家的反映差别很大：对于那些本来就不怎么查看手机的人来说，这件事没什么大不了的。

But for those whose friends, bosses, and co-workers expect prompt replies, the study brought on some extra stress and anxiety.

但对于那些经常需要立即回复朋友、老板、同事的人来说，这项实验反而带来了额外的压力和焦虑。

Overall, the group of 30 volunteers reported feeling significantly less distracted and significantly more productive over the day.

总体来说，这30个志愿者回应说：在这一天中感到自己分心的次数显著下降了、创造力显著提高了。

For nine participants, the Do Not Disturb challenge brought on extra feelings of missing out on something, whether a message from a friend or a package delivery alert.

对于其中9名参与者而言，这项“请勿打扰”挑战给他们平添了一种缺失感，不管他们缺失的是朋友的短信还是快递到货的提醒。

At the same time 11 participants reported feeling less stressed and more relaxed having switched their notifications off.

同时，另外11位参加者则说他们在关掉提醒之后感到压力减轻，觉得更放松了。

The researchers noted two big factors at play – the potential stress of being interrupted by constant notifications, and the potential stress of missing out on something important, and the balance between those two varied from person to person.

研究人员发现这其中有2个关键因素在起作用——因为担心不断收到提醒而产生的潜在压力，以及因为担心错过重要的事而产生的潜在压力，而这两者间的平衡关系对于每个人来说是不一样的。

Participants were still allowed to look at their phones to see if an alert had come in, and sure enough the amount of phone checking ended up being higher than normal when alerts were switched off.

参加者还是被允许查看自己的手机的，结果很容易想到：他们查看手机的次数比不关提醒的时候更高了。

Another downside was that participants felt less connected to their social groups as a result of the Do Not Disturb challenge, so there's a lot to take in from the study: it shows how phone notifications interrupt and distract us, but also how they connect us to others and enable us to manage social expectations.

另一个负面效果是：由于这项“请勿打扰”挑战，参加者觉得自己和自己的社交团体之间的联系被削弱了，所以，我们能从这项研究当中学到不少东西：它不光显示了手机提醒在不断地打断我们、让我们分心，但同时也显示了我们也在通过它们来与他人保持联系并通过他们来管理自己身上的社交预期。

On top of all those findings, the researchers are keen to point out how the day off from phone alerts changed habits in the long term – 22 of the volunteers said they planned to modify their phone notification settings as a result of the Do Not Disturb challenge, and after two years 13 of them were still following through with the changes.

而除了这些发现以外，研究者主要想指出的是：这一天的“无提醒”时间从长期看能够改变人的行为习惯——“请勿打扰”挑战结束后，30位受试者中的22位表示会调整自己手机的提醒方式，而在2年后的今天，依旧有13位受试者保持了这个习惯。

Considering most people rarely touch their phone's notification settings, that's a high number.

考虑到有很多人从来不管自己手机的提醒设置，这个数字还是挺高的。

（翻译：能猫）

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