I especially liked the section about notifications in this article:
> In their article The Psychology of Notifications, Ximena Vengochea and Nir Eyal call notifications “the Pavlovian bell of the 21st century.” For app designers and users alike, this is a double-edged sword. While notifications are exciting and a way to engage users repeatedly, they’re also numbing. When half of your notifications aren’t relevant and you’re waiting for an important reply, it can be like getting phone calls from everyone but the pizza delivery guy.
> [...]
> A research paper published by Florida State University tested students’ reactions to a simple game against a group that played the same game but had audible notifications distracting them as they went. Even though the participants never acted on the notifications, the test indicated that the notification sounds or vibrations distracted them noticeably, and just as much as a phone call would.
Stuff like this is the reason that I've had notifications turned off on my phone for years now. I still see them when I check my phone "manually" (which I do more often than necessary anyway, sign of the times), but they don't make a sound or make the screen turn on. I think it's definitely helped me.
