Beneficial Neglect: Instant Message Notification Handling Behaviors and Academic Performance

Smartphone notifications inform users of events to prompt timely engagement. However, there are growing concerns about messaging behaviors in schools because frequent in-class checking and responding may hinder students' learning. This study analyzed a large-scale smartphone usage dataset collected from 81 first-year college students for 14 weeks. We quantified notification arrival and checking patterns in classrooms and analyzed how notification handling behaviors were correlated with students' smartphone usage and academic performance. Our results showed that receiving messages and frequent checking occur during class. Frequent checking behaviors were positively related to longer app usage, while willful neglect of incoming messages was positively related to overall academic performance. Our work demonstrates that problematic behaviors exist related to instant messaging in learning contexts and recommends further study to devise effective intervention mechanisms.