Regardless of where I am, especially while I am just sitting around my apartment or at the library doing homework, my phone sits nearby with the screen up. My phone will light up if I get notifications and it immediately attracts my attention. Several months ago I decided muted the push notifications for the majority of apps on my phone (particularly all social media except Snapchat) in order to control what notifications are important to me and what is allowed to distract me. However, I still allow notifications for GroupMe, G-Mail, and Snapchat because they are a means of communication with my close friends or they send work notifications. This week I started paying closer attention to how I responded to these notifications, and I noticed that I am immediately compelled to open an email, group chat, or Snapchat notification as soon as it is received on my phone. Just having 1 or 2 unread messages can sometimes be too many unread messages for me. I decided to practice waiting to clear the notification, and it actually stressed me out to leave the red circle notifications uncleared on my home screen. This feeling persisted even if I knew that the unread message was unimportant. The discomfort with the unknown of an unread message is particularly bad with Snapchat because with no message preview I automatically have the mindset that every incoming message could be important. In contrast, I noticed that I do not check Instagram or Facebook frequently because there is no notification urging me to check the app and clear it.