Silence Your Notifications

Quick Win

All those dings, chirps and beeps can steal your attention. Take back your time — and focus — by turning them off.

Try This Today

• Start with apps. Go to Settings and tap Notifications on your phone or tablet. For iPhones, tap each app and switch Allow Notifications to off. Android phones allow you to hide notifications from the lock screen in one swoop: Under Lock Screen, choose Don’t show notifications. (Steps vary depending on the phone and model you have.)
• Customize. Some apps let you turn off sound alerts but keep visual notifications. That lets you see what came in without the distraction of those annoying beeps. For sound notifications you choose to keep, you may be able to control whether and how often the sound repeats. Android phones have a Snooze option for notifications.
• Have your “hard no” ready. Downloading a new app? When it asks, “Would you like to display notifications?” just say no.

Why

The cellphones and other devices that keep us connected may be “smart” — but they have no manners. Beeps and buzzes from social media, text messages and other apps can create a false sense of urgency that can break our concentration. People who were frequently interrupted or distracted by their smartphones at work were less likely to finish their tasks in a study of 86 adults with a mean age of 32 published in Behavioral Sciences in 2025. And smartphone notifications, especially ones that feel timely or personalized, can trigger the phenomenon of FOMO (fear of missing out), which in turn can keep people tethered to their devices, according to a study of 227 adults, about one-third of whom were age 36 or older, published in Communication and the Public in 2024.