{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "id": "notification-batching-boundary-2019",
  "canonical_url": "https://brali-lifeos.github.io/evidence/notification-batching-boundary-2019/",
  "json_url": "https://brali-lifeos.github.io/evidence/notification-batching-boundary-2019/index.json",
  "decision": "propose-protocol",
  "decision_label": "Protocol candidate",
  "reviewed_at": "2026-09-11",
  "reviewed_by": "Brali Evidence Reviewer",
  "source": {
    "title": "Batching smartphone notifications can improve well-being",
    "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.07.016",
    "type": "primary-study",
    "doi": "10.1016/j.chb.2019.07.016",
    "citation_text": "Fitz N, Kushlev K, Jagannathan R, Lewis T, Paliwal D, Ariely D. Comput Hum Behav. 2019;101:84-94.",
    "study_design": "Two-week randomized field experiment using a custom smartphone application. Participants were assigned to usual notification delivery, hourly batching, three daily batches, or no notifications.",
    "population": "237 adults recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk for a smartphone field experiment.",
    "intervention_or_exposure": "Notification delivery was changed from the phone's usual variable stream to predictable batches, either hourly or three times daily, or removed entirely in the no-notification condition.",
    "outcomes": [
      "Perceived notification interruptions",
      "Stress",
      "Attention",
      "Mood",
      "Perceived productivity",
      "Sense of control over the phone",
      "Anxiety and fear of missing out",
      "Phone-use behavior"
    ]
  },
  "supported_claim": "Predictable batching of non-urgent notifications is a defensible attention-environment experiment. In this field trial, three daily batches reduced perceived interruption and stress relative to usual delivery, while hourly batching changed little and complete notification removal increased anxiety/FoMO. Brali should preserve urgent exceptions and treat schedule frequency as a user-fit parameter rather than a fixed dose.",
  "unsupported_or_overstated_claims": [
    "Three notification batches per day is universally optimal.",
    "Hourly batching never helps anyone.",
    "Turning all notifications off is generally harmful.",
    "Notification batching reliably increases objective productivity or long-term wellbeing.",
    "The result automatically generalizes to every operating system, notification type, occupation, or family situation."
  ],
  "limitations": [
    "Single short field experiment rather than a replicated long-term evidence base.",
    "Participants were recruited through an online labor market and may not represent all smartphone users or work contexts.",
    "The intervention used a custom notification-management implementation.",
    "Many psychological outcomes were self-reported and the study intentionally used broad exploratory measurement.",
    "The study compared a small set of schedules and cannot identify an optimal individualized batching frequency."
  ],
  "target_hack_ids": [
    "batch-non-urgent-notifications"
  ],
  "target_protocol_ids": [
    "brali:batch-non-urgent-notifications"
  ],
  "risk_flags": [],
  "notes": "Publish the mechanism, not the number: separate urgent channels, batch the rest predictably, observe manual checking and missed information, and avoid total-silence superiority claims."
}