I almost got run over by a bus driver on his phone.
I was on a run with Koda, a good dog, crossing a major intersection with a walk sign. A school bus came out of nowhere and turned into the crosswalk. When the driver's eyes met mine, he was holding his cell phone in his hand and was just looking up from it. He slammed on the brakes and I was able to avoid the bus by two feet. Thankfully dog was ahead of me or he would have been hit.
I was pissed off at this driver. Thankfully there were no children on the bus. I suspect he was running late and didn't see me because he was staring at a phone.
No TikTok video is worth wiping out a dog or a human.
What's the Seth Godin quote? "You can change the world or you can stare at your phone, but you can't do both."
I like that quote. Seems accurate to me.
Your attention is either focused on creating change in the world or it is focused on the passive consumption of other people's dreams.
How does this stolen focus show up in the workplace?
THE SCIENCE
What does a smartphone notification actually do to your brain while you are working, even if you don't read it? Turns out to be pretty bad...
Researchers used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the electrical activity across the brain in real time when notifications arrived during a cognitive task (Upshaw et al., 2022). Participants were doing an attention and cognitive control test. Some had their phones nearby, set to receive notifications. Others didn't.
Here's what they found. When a notification arrived, participants' performance on the attention task dropped. Their error rates increased. But the more important finding was in the EEG data. The brain potentials associated with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex ( the region primarily responsible for cognitive control, working memory, and sustained attention ) changed in measurable ways following a notification, even when participants didn't look at the phone and didn't consciously register what had arrived.
The notification didn't just steal 30 seconds of attention. It altered the state of the brain that was trying to do the work. The prefrontal cortex, disrupted at the neural level, was less effective at the very task the person was trying to complete.
The researchers described this as a cost that operated below the level of conscious awareness. Participants didn't report feeling distracted when they chose not to look. But their brains told a different story. The notification had landed, even if unread, and the neural resources required to suppress awareness of it were resources no longer available for the primary task.
This aligns with what psychologists call the "mere presence" effect, documented in separate research, showing that even a phone sitting face-down on a desk, without any notifications, measurably reduces available working memory compared to a phone in another room. The brain partially allocates resources to monitoring the device's potential for input, even when you're consciously ignoring it.
For executives doing complex cognitive work this represents a measurable and unnecessary reduction in the quality of their most important thinking. Not because they lack focus. Because their environment is constantly taxing the neural system they need.
THE TAKEAWAY
Turning your phone face-down is not enough. Putting it on silent is not enough. The research shows your brain monitors the device's potential to deliver input, even without any visible or audible signal. Physical separation from the device during deep work is what the evidence supports. This is not a lifestyle preference. It is a cognitive performance intervention with direct neural evidence behind it.
YOUR EDGE THIS WEEK
For your most important work block tomorrow, put your phone in a drawer or another room. Not on silent. Not face down. Physically separated. Block the time in your calendar so people expect a delayed response. Do this for five consecutive workdays and notice whether the quality of your thinking feels different.
Audit your current notification load. Open your phone settings and count how many apps have permission to notify you. Most people have dozens. Pick a number you can live with and turn everything else off. The rest can wait for when you choose to check them.
Create two designated times in your day when you check messages. Tell your team these windows exist. Most urgent things are not actually urgent. If something urgent comes up, have them call you so you can hear the ring from the other room. Everything else can wait 90 minutes.
Be well,
Eric
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