Dr Mark Williams: neuroscientist on the new data revealing Kiwis check their devices for notifications up to 50 times an hour

New research reveals Kiwis check their devices for notifications up to 50 times per hour.

According to a survey by Kindle, 86 percent of respondents check through their notifications before they go to sleep - which has been found to contribute to increased stress levels and poor sleep quality.

Neuroscientist Dr Mark Williams says many people have also developed 'phantom buzz' syndrome as a result of always needing to be connected to their phones.

"Their brains are so wired to be constantly getting these notifications - that's what they're looking for all the time. They get these 'phantom buzzes' and they have trouble getting to sleep and doing things."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New research out from Amazon says that kiwis check their phones.
You pick up your phone all day long. I know
you do pick up their phones and check notifications up
to fifty times per hour. More than a quarter of
us are receiving notifications right up until the time we
go to sleep. And it's also been revealed that apparently
nine forty five pm is the ideal time to switch off.

(00:20):
Doctor Mark Williams is a neuroscience professor. He's with me
this evening.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Good evening, Hi Ryan, nice to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Good to have you on. Can you be honest hat
do you know how many times an hour you pick
up your phone?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I actually have allline notifications turned off, so I'm not
getting beat and buzzed all the time. And then I
have in my calendar times to actually check my phone
to see if I've had anything important I'm going to
deal with, and.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
In between that you don't have the urge.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
No, No, not at all.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Interesting because I think I think a lot of people
would you know where it? Because is it? If you
have your no notifications buzzing you, then you're less likely
to pick it up.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, so the notifications are what they're using to actually
get us to pick up the phone. So the notifications
they have a noise, or if you turn down the
noise then they buzz, they actually move on you. And
those are two are the best ways to actually capture
our at tension. And we've got to remember that our
brain is exactly the same brain as we had twenty
five thousand years ago, right, and that is just looking

(01:24):
for things that might be dangerous in our environment. And
so things that move or sort of things that make
sound could be dangerous, and so we're always looking out
for that, and that's basically why the phone attracts our
attention and captures us. And so by getting rid of those,
we don't have that drive to constantly pick it up
and have a look to make sure it's nothing we
need to worry about.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
If we continue down this path and we're doing it
up to fifty times an hour, what happens to our brain?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, So our brain is basically just like any other muscle,
but it's got lots and lots of muscles in it,
and the muscles that we work all the time become
really strong and they're the dominant ones that we're going
to are constantly active, and the muscles that we don't
work are going to atrophy and slowly die off, and
we won't have access to those anymore. And so if
you're constantly darting from one thing to another or constantly

(02:12):
responding to your phone, then that's something that you're going
to be constantly doing more and more and more. And
that's why a lot of people now have a thing
called phantom buzz syndrome where they'll get a buzz on
their leg or a buzz on their wrist if they
have the smart watch on, even when they're not actually
getting notifications, because their brain's so wide to be constantly
getting these notifications, that's what they're looking for all the time,

(02:33):
and they get these phantom buzzers and they have trouble
going to sleep and doing those things because of those
fandom buzzers. So they're actually physically addicted to it.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
That's grim. And yet meanwhile, the longer term, you know
what you might call the deeper thinking part of our brain,
if we're not using that as much, then that just dies.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, we know, we're getting dumber, right for the first
time in our evolutionary history. We're getting dumber at the moment,
and that's happened over about the last ten years, and
we know that from the Flint effect. The Fline effect
is this idea that we were actually getting smarter because
people are getting more educated and we're learning how to
read and do all these sorts of things. So the
last one hundred and fifty years or so, we've been

(03:12):
getting smarter every five or ten years. Over the last
ten years, we've actually got dumber. And the only thing
that's happened in that time, of course, is these devices
that we now have in our pockets that are constantly
distracting us. So that's a huge problem. But also we
know that it's the younger you've given a device, or
the more time you spend on the device, the more
likely you are to have ADHD as well. And ADHD,

(03:33):
of course, is a disorder of attention, and these things
are attracted constantly interrupting how attentional mechanisms are not allowing
us to develop those areas properly, so we're not able
to sustain our attention that actually do good work, actually
think about things, and to read books and do these
sorts of things. And of course, on the other hand,
reading's gone dropped off dramatically. Most people used to read

(03:56):
ten to fifteen books every year. Your average person, an
average person today is reading like some one booky, which
is really really sad as well of.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Course fascinating and disturbing. Doctor Mark Williams, really appreciate your time,
neuroscience professor. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen
live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
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