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How to stop checking your phone while studying
Silence notifications before you start, put the phone somewhere you can't reach it, and decide how long you will work before you look again. Florida State University researchers found that unanswered notifications still hurt performance on an attention task, and a University of Texas study found people did best on concentration tests with the phone in another room.
Why the phone pulls at you even when it is silent
In 2017, Adrian Ward and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business published experiments with nearly 800 smartphone users in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. Participants sat at a computer and took tests that needed full concentration, designed to measure available cognitive capacity, the brain's ability to hold and process information at a given moment. Before starting, they were randomly told to put their phone face down on the desk, in a pocket or bag, or in another room, with the phone set to silent.
People with the phone in another room significantly outperformed those with it on the desk, and slightly outperformed those with it in a pocket or bag. The researchers also found that it did not matter whether the phone was on or off, or face up or face down. The people most dependent on their phones did worse than their peers, but only when the phone was on the desk or in a pocket or bag.
Ward's explanation was that you are not consciously thinking about the phone, but the work of keeping yourself from thinking about it uses up some of your limited cognitive resources. The study's title gave the idea its name: brain drain.
What later studies found
The result became famous, and then got harder to reproduce. A replication by Ruiz Pardo and Minda, published in Acta Psychologica in 2022, found no difference between the phone-location conditions.
Two meta-analyses that pooled many studies landed in similar places. Böttger, Poschik and Zierer, writing in Behavioral Sciences in 2023, combined 43 effects from 22 studies and found a small overall negative effect of a phone's presence (g = -0.14), strongest for memory. Douglas Parry's 2024 analysis in Media Psychology, drawing on 7,093 participants across six separate meta-analyses, found only one statistically significant pooled effect, a negative effect on working memory, with null results for the other abilities. He also points to generally low statistical power and widely varying methods across the field.
The honest reading is that a phone sitting next to you probably costs a little, mostly on memory-heavy work, and less than the headlines suggested. Moving it out of reach is still worth doing. It costs nothing, and a phone you cannot reach is a phone you cannot pick up.
Notifications are the clearer problem
The stronger case is against notifications. In a 2015 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Cary Stothart, Ainsley Mitchum and Courtney Yehnert of Florida State University had participants do an attention-demanding computer task while automated calls and text messages were sent to their own phones. Those who received notifications made more mistakes than those who did not, even though they never interacted with the phone, and the researchers said the distraction was comparable to the effects of actively using a phone to call or text.
Their explanation was that even a short notification, sound or vibration, can prompt task-irrelevant thoughts, or mind-wandering, which damages performance. A message you ignore still takes a slice of your attention. Francesco Cirillo, describing the Pomodoro Technique in 2006, gave the same advice in plainer terms: email can keep arriving without distracting you if you switch off the sound for incoming messages.
Your phone already has the switch. Apple describes Do Not Disturb as a Focus option that silences calls, alerts and notifications; on an iPhone you can turn it on by touching and holding the Focus button in Control Center, or under Settings, Focus, Do Not Disturb, where you can also let specific people or apps through. On Android, Google's Digital Wellbeing has a Focus mode under Settings, Digital Wellbeing: you choose apps to pause, and while it is on you can't use them and won't get notifications from them. It can run on a schedule, and Take a break unpauses the apps for a time limit you choose.
A study routine that holds up
Before you sit down, decide what you will work on and for how long. Cirillo's 25-minute pomodoro is a sensible default, and a 2023 study of 87 students in the British Journal of Educational Psychology found that students on fixed breaks reported less fatigue and distractedness, and more concentration and motivation, than students who took breaks whenever they felt like it.
Then switch on Do Not Disturb or Focus mode and put the phone where reaching it takes effort: another room if you do not need it, or at least out of arm's reach. When the urge to check something arrives, write it on paper instead of acting on it. Cirillo's method marks each of these urges with an apostrophe and moves the errand to later, which also shows you how often it happens.
Check the phone on the break, not during the block, and give the break an end. Cirillo warns that time off between work blocks that keeps running past 5 to 10 minutes breaks the rhythm, so if the phone comes out on the break, set a timer for the break as well.
Common mistakes
Turning the phone face down and calling it done. In Ward's experiments, face up or face down made no difference. Where the phone was mattered more than which way it faced.
Leaving notifications on for the important ones. Stothart's participants never answered their phones, and the notifications still cost them. If you need to stay reachable, allow specific people through your Focus or Do Not Disturb settings rather than leaving everything on.
Expecting the phone's location to do all the work. The mixed brain drain results are a reminder that where the phone sits is only part of it. The urge to check still needs a plan, such as writing it down for the break.
Using the phone as your timer, then checking it. If the phone is also your timer, FocusPet is built around that moment: a small pet plays next to the countdown, and if you leave the app for more than ten seconds before the time is up, it is sad when you come back. It does not block other apps, so pair it with Do Not Disturb.
Frequently asked questions
Is it better to turn my phone off or put it in another room?
In Ward's 2017 experiments, turning the phone off made no difference but location did: people with the phone in another room did best. Later replications and meta-analyses found the effect smaller and less consistent, so treat another room as a cheap precaution rather than a guarantee.
Does putting my phone face down help?
Not by itself, according to Ward and colleagues, who found it did not matter whether the phone lay face up or face down. Silencing notifications has stronger support.
Do notifications distract you even if you ignore them?
Yes. In a 2015 Florida State University study, participants who received calls or texts during an attention-demanding task made more mistakes than those who did not, even though they never touched their phones.
How long should I study before checking my phone?
There is no research-backed magic number. A common structure is Francesco Cirillo's Pomodoro Technique: 25 minutes of work, then a 3 to 5 minute break, with a longer break after four. Check the phone in the break, not in the block.