The Impact Of Smartphone Notification Overload on Emotional Exhaustion: The Mediating Role of Attentional Fatigue and Moderating Role of Mindfulness

Abstract

Smartphone-enabled constant connectivity has magnified the exposure to intrusive push notifications making notification-related information overload a salient techno-stressor with implications for cognitive and psychological well-being. This study had an underlying moderated-mediation model in which smartphone notification overload predicts emotional exhaustion, where attentional fatigue mediates, and trait mindfulness moderates these two variables. Using a two-wave two-week time lagged survey design, data was obtained from 350 working individuals and university students (18 to 50 years) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan using smartphones for >=3 hours a day with active push notifications. Notification overload and mindfulness at Time 1 and attentional fatigue and emotional exhaustion at Time 2 were measured. Results of analyses (SPSS v27; PROCESS, 5,000 bootstraps) showed significant positive relationships between notification overload, attentional fatigue, and emotional exhaustion (r= .69-.71, p<.01). Notification overload significantly predicted attentional fatigue (beta= .689, R2=.475) and emotional exhaustion (beta= .690, R2=.476). Mediation analysis showed partial mediation through attentional fatigue (indirect B = .352, 95% CI [.269, .436]) in addition to having a significant direct effect. Moderation results revealed the significance of overload x mindfulness interactions, and conditional effects becoming much larger at a high degree of mindfulness. Findings highlight the strong predictors of cognitive strain and emotional exhaustion of increased tendency to have notification overload on the risk of digital well-being intervention.