The State of Notification Fatigue in America

With every new phone update and release, our lives become more and more digitized. While many Americans are quite fond of their cell phones, others are becoming overwhelmed by the constant dings and vibrations that come with frequent notifications.

At Solitaire Bliss, we know our users love connecting with friends on social media and playing games on thier phones, but we also know the feeling of signing up for the latest app or online deal only to get pinged endlessly about a multitude of things you don’t care about. That’s why we set out to learn where in the U.S. people are feeling most inundated with notifications.

To do this, we surveyed residents in 40 of the largest cities and asked a variety of questions from how often notifications interrupt them, how many they receive a day on average, how these constant updates impact their lives and more. We then created a notification fatigue score on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 representing the most fatigued. Read on to learn how the city you call home ranks among the rest.

Key Takeaways

• Baltimore, MD, Sacramento, CA, and Miami, FL, residents experience the most notification fatigue.
• One-on-one texts and personal emails are the notifications that plague Americans most.
• 66% of Americans are interrupted at least once an hour by notifications, and 1 in 3 are interrupted every 20 minutes.
• 45% of Americans have used focus mode or a similar setting to turn off certain notifications during specific times or days.
• 2 in 5 Americans say their notifications have caused them to lose focus at work.
• 1 in 5 Americans say their habit of checking notifications immediately has impacted their relationships.
• 63% of Americans have deleted an app due to excessive notifications rather than adjusting settings.

Where Americans Are Most Inundated with Notifications

While we look forward to some notifications like text messages from our friends or likes on a social media post, other notifications simply don’t elicit the same response. With so many apps to download, it’s no wonder that our phones are becoming overrun with notifications.

Feeling this the most are Baltimore, MD, residents with a notification fatigue score of 98.58 out of 100. These constant updates became so much that 56% of Baltimore residents say they have turned to focus mode or similar settings to turn off certain notifications during specific times or days.

Up next is Sacramento, CA, with a score of 95.50 out of 100 as 1 in 3 residents report feeling obligated to respond to notifications within minutes of receiving them. With 78% of Sacramento residents saying they receive a notification at least once every hour, it can become quite taxing to keep up when you’re trying to focus on other things like work, a hobby, or even time with family.

Coming in third place for notification fatigue is Miami, FL, (94.38) where 60% of residents say the constant updates from a certain app have led to them deleting it altogether rather than adjusting settings. Another Florida city is up next as Orlando claims fourth place with a notification score of 91.50 out of 100.

Rounding out the top five for cities most inundated with notifications is Chicago, IL, with a score of 91.33 out of 100. When considering all of the notifications they receive, 1 in 5 Chicago residents say they receive the most from their personal email.

Overall, 1 in 8 Americans report feeling that their notifications are out of control and cause them stress. Sometimes notifications can have an impact on more than just our own well-being as we discovered 1 in 5 people say their relationships have been affected by their habit of checking notifications immediately.

Notifications We Receive and Their Impacts on Our Lives

After learning about the state of fatigue across the country, we wanted to gain more insight into the specific types of notifications that are constantly popping up on phones. Up first with 71% of people reporting they receive them most often is one-on-one text messages.

For 65% of people, personal emails are among the notifications they receive most. This is followed by social media notifications which plague 56% of Americans' phones each day. Up next on the ranking are shopping updates, with deals or promo offers (46%) claiming fourth place and shopping alerts (44%) like delivery updates and new orders claiming fifth place.

While the top five may be exciting notifications for some, the sixth most common is likely not enjoyed by anyone — spam or phishing messages, which more than two-fifths of Americans receive frequently. In seventh place is a notification that many people consider just as bad as spam, which is group chats. If you cringe when someone replies all to an email, then you’re probably part of the 42% getting weary of group chats.

Frequent notifications can impact more than just our sanity. They can distract us from the world around us or even the things we are doing. To capture this concept, we asked respondents how notifications have affected various aspects of their lives.

On average, most people spend about 40 hours each week working, but for 2 in 5 Americans this time is frequently interrupted by notifications causing them to lose focus while at their job. For 38% of people, notifications have even led to them ignoring someone they were talking to in person because they felt the need to check their phone.

While we know our focus should be on the thing we are currently doing, many Americans still find themselves distracted by the ping from their phone. Even when behind the wheel people struggle to put their phones away as 37% of Americans admit to checking their notifications while driving.

Disconnect from Notifications with Solitaire Bliss

While some notifications simply can’t be turned off due to importance or your preference to stay updated, you can take advantage of other ways to disconnect and relax when the notifications become too much. Afterall, we deal with so many things in our lives from hectic schedules to taxing responsibilities, it’s important to find a way to unwind during your free time.

Next time you start to feel overwhelmed with the updates popping up on your phone, let the team at Solitaire Bliss distract you and allow you to disconnect from the notifications. From Classic Solitaire, to Spider Solitaire, to FreeCell, you can find several free, online games ready to play whenever, wherever, and you don’t have to sign up for an account and worry about getting pinged with notifications. Get started today and forget about those notifications for a while.

Methodology

In this study, we set out to learn where Americans are most plagued by notification fatigue. To do this, we surveyed residents in 40 of the largest U.S. cities and asked how often they are interrupted by notifications on their phone, how many they receive daily, steps they've taken to reduce notifications, and more. We then awarded points for the frequency in which respondents are disturbed and calculated the average score by city and adjusted them on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 representing the most notification fatigue.