It's safe to assume that we live in a technology addicted society, where we can't leave our house without our smartphones or go a full day without checking our Facebook and Instagram accounts. And some instigators proved that we instantly and instinctively check our phones whenever we hear notification related sounds— even when it's not coming from our own phones.
Taking a prank call to the next level, the people behind the YouTube channel called Whatever set up a social experiment called "Notification Prank" to see how fast people check their phones when they hear a tonal alert.
For the experiment, a man plays a notification sound on his phone while walking by people sitting on a nearby bench. Each person looks down at their devices instantly after hearing the sound, even though the ding wasn't directly coming from their phones. One man even reaches into his back pocket and starts browsing through his phone, looking in the direction of the man who walked by. One women reaches into her bag that is placed on the floor to pick up her phone, checks it and places it back when she sees nothing. In a group of three girls, all three immediately grab their phones from their bags to check for a message.
Depending on where you fall on the Luddite spectrum, the video could be looked at as a laughable prank or a sad social experiment.
