People are “overstimulated all the time” by a never-ending barrage of notifications being sent to their phones, according to Jess Kelly.

The Newstalk Tech Correspondent is advising people to join her in turning off push notifications for better peace of mind.

On Moncrieff today, Jess said push notifications were once important but have been “devalued” in recent years through excessive use.

“How many times a day now does your phone buzz or light up with a non-urgent notification and drag your attention away from whatever you were doing,” she said.

“It used to be breaking news, the Taoiseach standing down qualifies or the Queen dies – absolutely send me a notification for that,” she said.

“But absolutely don’t send five cool trends to try this Spring - absolutely not.”

Push notifications

Jess said she has taken the decision to turn off push notifications.

“I have muted not only all news push notifications but also social media notifications – they are completely gone and I’ll get to them when I get to them,” she said.

“I think the fear of missing out has come from push notifications; we are overstimulated all the time.

“I have muted all the notifications for everything except WhatsApp.”

Screentime

Jess said looking at screen time settings on her phone makes for frightening reading.

“My average screen time on my smartphone is six hours and 51 minutes,” she said.

“Last week my iPhone tells me I picked up and locked my phone 1,222 times.

“On average, pick up my phone 163 times a day and I average around 95 notifications a day.”

Negative effects

She said excessive screen time can have lots of negative effects on people.

“I just think we need to take back control,” she said.

“People are giving out about screen time, they’re giving out about a lack of attention, a lack of focus, and they don’t realise the controls are in the palm of your hand.”

Jess also advised turning off notifications for group chats across various messaging apps for some additional peace of mind.

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