Study shows smartphone notifications create symptoms similar to ADHD

Amid myriad complaints that millennials possess shorter attention spans and experience greater difficulty focusing than previous generations unexposed to the internet and modern technology, a new study from the University of British Columbia has emerged that is almost certain to be mis-cited and misused to support this sentiment. Research has demonstrated that smartphone notifications can create symptoms in adults similar to ADHD.

What the researchers are not saying, and what many people will probably take away from this anyway, is that smartphones cause ADHD. The study doesn't show this at all. But before we get to that, let's break down the elements of the experiment.

See also: After 19 related deaths in India, Mumbai bans selfies in key areas22

Researchers studied a group of 221 young people in an "experimental distraction setting" over the course of a week. During this week, their phones were set to vibrate and were within easy reach. For the next week, their phones were placed on silent and taken away. Researchers took notes regarding the participants' mental state and productivity during both intervals.

The lead researcher Kostadin Kushlev revealed that they honestly didn't know what results to expect. Some members of the team postulated that regular smartphone users would experience anxiety when parted with their device and thus experience higher degrees of distraction. This isn't what happened at all, however. When the subjects were deprived of their smartphone notifications, they were more productive, experienced less boredom, and had an easier time focusing on the tasks at hand. They were still able to check their phones, but only when they deliberately decided to, not just because a recent notification jerked their attention. Comparatively, those with smartphones on vibrate appeared to demonstrate symptoms of ADHD.

"It's important to be clear that we're not saying smartphones cause ADHD itself," said Kushlev. "There's been no research on that." Rather, what this study shows is that the attention-grabbing buzz of our smartphones simulates the way in which sufferers of ADHD are easily pulled from concentration by unrelated minutia. Essentially, having your phone on ring or vibrate all the time is like volunteering for ADHD. The takeaway from this is not that our phones are decreasing our attention spans. Rather, if you want to be productive for a while, then maybe it would be a good idea to hold on just a second someone retweeted me.

Next: Selfies now kill more people than sharks

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T-Mobile unveils Tourist Plan for summer vacationers to the USA

One challenge that has long-plagued vacationers is the complexity of making cellular arrangements for the trip. T-Mobile is angling to take the hassle out of this process by offering tourists coming to the US a simple plan that lets them stay afloat on 4G LTE without navigating complicated deals or enduring the gouge of roaming. For $30, you get three weeks of T-Mobile service that includes 1000 minutes of calling within the US, unlimited international texting to over 140 countries and territories, 2GB of 4G data, and unlimited lower speed data after you use that up.

See also: T-Mobile offering BOGO deal on all Samsung Galaxy smartphones2

You might be concerned about the trouble regarding getting a SIM card and activating it, but don't worry about it. The carrier is saying they're going to cover the cost of your SIM card and activation 100%. Just walk into a T-Mobile store with your phone and ask for the Tourist plan. You do have to have an unlocked device, of course.

This plan will go live starting June 12. There's no sense in signing up online since you need to bring your phone in for activation, but you can use their site to find a T-Mobile location close to where you're staying. Check out the promo page for the full scoop on this plan, and let us know what you think of it in the comments below. Solid deal or a total rip-off? Give us your opinion!

Next: Best pre-paid T-Mobile Android phones

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Best word games for Android

Twist your tongue with these great word games for Android.

We've rounded up the best Android word games you'll find in the Google Play Store. These will test your puzzle-solving skills, trivia knowledge, and sheer reflexes. Quite a few have in-app purchases, but still offer plenty of free content on their own.

Ready to start working with letters? Check out our list of the best Android word games!

• Wordament
• Words with Friends
• Wordfeud
• Heads Up!
• Snap Attack
• WordBrain
• Bonza
• 7 Little Words

Wordament

Wordament is an online-only multiplayer game that lets you compete against other spellers across the globe. Swipe to connect letters diagonally, horizontally, and vertically in order to score points based on a word's rarity, determined by how often the word is found by the player-base. You can rotate the board to better see combination options, but the placement of letters does not change in relation to other letters.

Add an Xbox or Facebook account in order to keep track of your friends and progress as you move up the leaderboard. Ads are minimal — a refreshing for many gamers.

• Free - Download now

Words with Friends

Many people's favorite word game, Words with Friends has been a staple Android game since 2009. Start off by placing a letter on the center tile and go about building words — fans of the classic Scrabble board game will immediately feel at home with double and triple letter scores, and double and triple word scores. You can swap unwanted tiles in lieu of a turn, and the built-in dictionary will let you know what words you can and can't play.

If you play a word you're especially proud of, share a picture of the game board through an option in the game menu. There is an option to remove ads, but at $12.38, you might be better of dealing with the ad that pops up after each of your turns.

• Free - Download now

Wordfeud

Wordfeud pits you against an opponent over Facebook, from your phone's contact list, or an opponent Wordfeud finds for you. Fans of the classic board game Scrabble will immediately feel at home when the board is revealed; begin by playing a word on the center tile, and build your vocabulary from there.

If the competition isn't strong enough playing one versus one, Wordfeud offers a tournament mode. Log in with Facebook or email and have a go at the rest of the world. With more than 30 languages available, you're sure to find a worthy opponent.

An in-app purchase is available for $2.99 to remove ads and reveal statistics. Not a bad idea if you'd like to track your progress — the ads are few and far between and might not be worth the money to get rid of them.

• Free - Download now

Heads Up!

Heads Up! is a really fun local multiplayer trivia game. One player holds a phone or tablet to their head showing a word, and a teammate gives hints as to what the word is (without saying it specifically, of course). A quick flip down of the device brings up a fresh word when guessed right, while a flip up is a pass. After it's all done, you can watch a video replay taken from the device's front-facing camera and share it out to friends. There are six themed packs available out of the gate, and plenty more through in-app purchases of about a buck a pop.

Definitely give Heads Up! a try if you've been looking for something easy to play at parties.

• Free - Download now

Snap Attack

SnapAttack is the classic Scrabble game with a twist. Instead of taking turns against opponents creating words one at a time, SnapAttack gives you 2.5 minutes, 7 letter tiles, and a board with two words already on it. Your job is to place the letter tiles on the board as words and rearrange them as many times as possible before your time is up. SnapAttack rewards points the same way as Scrabble: tiles are assigned a number, and the board has score multipliers in the form of double or triple word and letter scores.

Work your way up the global leaderboard by creating as many words as possible during each round. A new round will automatically begin, so expect to lose track of time. There doesn't seem to be any ads in this game, a nice change from the norm.

• Free - Download now

WordBrain

WordBrain is a single player game that sees you move your way through increasingly difficult word puzzles. The puzzles start with four letters and you must create a four letter word by swiping in any direction, using each tile once. As you progress through the game you will eventually see 64 letter puzzles where you have to create multiple words of varying length. Upon reaching the puzzles with nine tiles the game becomes a challenge — the extra letter tiles (ones not yet used for the other word) are there to fool you and sometimes get in your way. Luckily there is a hint option you can use to reveal a letter's placement in the word.

A really cool feature, you say? Create your own word puzzles and challenge your friends. There are some pop-up ads found here but they're not very frequent and can be quickly closed.

• Free - Download now

Bonza

Bonza is a word puzzle game where players are given a topic and have to to assemble an assortment of crossword-style letter tiles so they make a full set of words. New packs of puzzles are available daily, and more still through in-app purchases. If things get too tricky, you can spend the coins you earn in-game on hints.

Bonza is a relaxing word game that puts a modern twist on an old crossword aesthetic.

• Free - Download now

7 Little Words

7 Little Words gives players a batch of trivia hints in a crossword format, and letter tiles to assemble into their solutions. Every pack has a certain theme, with new packs being made available regularly through in-app purchases. Hints are available for those that are stuck, too.

Anyone looking to test their knowledge and wordplay at the same time will get a lot of mileage out of 7 Little Words

• Free - Download now

Your favorite word game?

Let us know in the comments below if we missed any of your favorite word games! If you'd like to see more great Android games, check out our roundup of the best Android games.

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The new sub-$300 ZUK Z2 packs a Snapdragon 820 and 4GB of RAM

Lenovo's ZUK sub-brand has been quite busy lately. Last month the company announced the Z2 Pro, which offers a Snapdragon 820 processor and 6GB of RAM for only $420. Now they're back with a new budget-friendly smartphone that drops the price down even further.

The ZUK Z2 will definitely provide a lot of bang for your buck. For less than $300, you'll get a 5.0-inch Full HD display, a Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, a whopping 64GB of internal storage and two SIM card slots. It also comes with a 13MP ISOCELL rear camera with phase detection autofocus, an 8MP wide-angle front-facing camera, a fingerprint scanner, LTE capabilities and a 3,500mAh battery with support for Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0. It will also run Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box with ZUK's ZUI 2.0 interface.

See also: ZUK Z1 review41

The ZUK Z2 will be available in China when it launches on June 7th for ¥1,799 ($273USD). As of now there's no word on a global release, but we'll keep you updated as we learn more details. What do you think if the ZUK Z2? Let us know in the comments!

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How to make your Android look and feel like an iPhone

Apple has one look, and it's quite a distinctive one. If you really want to make your Android look like an iPhone, you can.

There's no single Android "look." Sure, we've got Material Design, and it's great. But Android can and often does look like anything under the sun: pretty, ugly, clean, busy, Material, Holo, retro, futuristic, and at times, even Apple-y. If you can make your phone look like anything, it makes sense that some might want their phone to look like one of Cupertino's devices.

Now making your phone look and behave exactly like an iPhone is impossible without a specialized ROM, or a phone that was designed to look and feel like an iPhone — think Xiaomi, Huawei, or a few other Chinese manufacturers. But between these apps and a little patience, we can make your new phone behave and feel a lot more like your old one … in a good way.

Home screen

This is an area that throws a lot of former iPhone users for a loop, since the home screen experience can be quite different from Apple's simple app and folder grid. While Apple users tend to live in what we call the app drawer, Android users have home screens on top of the app drawer so that most apps are out of the way and only what you want to see is on the home screen.

A lot of launchers try to emulate or copy the iPhone, and to be fair, that is an option. If you just want all your apps on the home screen instead of an app drawer and a 5x4 grid with a dock, then download a launcher like Hola or iLauncher. The icons won't be the same and the quick settings won't be there, but you'll get 93 percent of the way back to what you had. Enjoy.

Want to try and get closer? Want the Quick Settings gesture on your home screen or consistent icons — or even exact icons that match your old phone? Well, this isn't going to be a simple install and go, but with Nova Launcher and a little time, we're gonna make magic.

Now, for those new to our little Android club, Nova Launcher is a highly popular and customizable third-party home screen launcher. It can replace the launcher that came on your phone as the default home screen, so Android users can change their entire home screen experience by downloading a new launcher. They're awesome, and there are plenty of good launchers out there, but today we're sticking with Nova so that we can get down and dirty in Nova Settings to help get us as close as possible.

Making an iHome Screen Layout in Nova Launcher:

1. Install Nova Launcher from the Google Play Store. It's free, though I highly recommend buying Nova Launcher Prime ($4.99) so that you get all the features, including the gesture shortcuts we're gonna be taking advantage of later on for Quick Settings.
2. Open Nova Launcher.
3. Tap the home button.
4. When prompted, select Nova Launcher as the default Home screen launcher.
5. Open the app drawer (the six dots in a circle in the center of the dock).
6. Open Nova Settings, then Desktop.
7. Open Desktop grid and expand the grid from 5 rows to 6 by dragging the current row number (5) up until the 6 takes its place and the preview grid shows six rows.
8. Confirm the change by tapping Done.
9. (Optional) Scroll down in Desktop settings and toggle on Add icon to home screen. Note: Most users hate this setting, as it puts everything you install on the home screen instead of in the app drawer. For users coming from an iPhone who are used to living in an app drawer, you might prefer to have all the apps dumped on your home screen so you never have to look at the app drawer.
10. Tap the back button to return to the main Nova Settings menu.
11. Open Dock.
12. Open Dock icons and drag the 5 to the right until 4 takes its place and you see four squares in the preview dock instead of 5. This will allow our dock to line up with our desktop grid, but it also means that if you intend to use the app drawer, your dock might feel unbalanced.
13. Download the iOS folder background and save it to a folder you'll remember.
14. Open Nova Settings, then Folders.
15. In Folder preview, select Grid.
16. In Folder background, select Custom.
17. Navigate to the folder background image you downloaded and select it.
18. Tap the home button to return to the home screen and check out your new grid.

Now, your grid will look like it did on your iPhone, but the icons won't yet.

Apple-esque (and actual Apple) Icons

Android's icons are far more diverse than the rounded squares that Apple insists all icons on the App Store be. But thankfully, there's a metric crap-ton of icon packs in the Google Play Store that'll give you icons shaped that way. None of them are quite like Apple (because copyright), but you have ample options. Here are just just a few:

• Adrasta (Free) is a rounded square icon pack that looks pretty freaking good with a bright palette and clean lines. It also has a masking tool so that unthemed icons are still sitting on a rounded rectangle. It also has a nice variety of alternate icons to let you play with.
• Beluk ($0.99) is a super-rounded square icon pack that can fit right in with ridiculously pop-off-the-screen colorful themes or with more refined, muted wallpapers. Play with your squares for once!
• Alos ($0.99) takes on a flatter, simpler look for its squares, with a palette and design that plays well with material layouts and pop against a plethora of wallpapers.

Applying an Apple-esque icon pack:

1. Install the pack from Google Play.
2. Open Nova Settings, then Look & feel.
3. Open Icon theme and select your icon pack from the list of icon packs.
4. Hit the home button and see your glorious new icons.
5. (Optional) If the icons look too small in the launcher, you can turn off Normalize icon size in Look & feel to try and boost the size of the icons. If you're a Nova Launcher Prime user, you can enlarge your icons on the Desktop, Dock, and App & widget drawer using the Icon layout option in each of those menus.

For more information on Icon layout and Nova Settings, read our handy guide

If you absolutely, positively must have the icons from your iPhone, you can have them. HOWEVER, you'll have to set each one you use as a custom icon. And if that sounds tedious, that's because it is, but that's the price of being particular. I know; I've paid it many times before.

Putting iOS icons on an Android phone

1. Download the stock icons for iOS 9 from deviantart user LutschGabriel, or the iOS 8 icons from deviantart user dtafalonso.
2. Now, you'll need to extract the icons using a file manager app like Solid Explorer. Save them to a convenient folder and remember where you saved them, because you're gonna be coming back to that folder a lot.
3. Long-press on one of the app shortcuts on your home screen you'd like to replace.
4. Edit the shortcut.
5. Tap the icon to edit the icon.
6. Rather than select an icon from a pack, tap Gallery apps.
7. Select Documents to bring up a document browser.
8. Find the folder you saved your stock icons to and select your intended iOS icon.
9. Make sure the preview square includes the entire icon. If it doesn't, drag the corners of the preview box to expand it.
10. Tap Done to confirm your custom icon.
11. (Optional) If you would like to relabel the app to match its iOS counterpart, feel free. Changing the label doesn't change what app the shortcut goes to, so you can lie and say you're going to iMessage when you're really going to Hangouts.
12. Tap Done in the shortcut edit window to confirm your edits.

Grab a drink and repeat steps 1-11 for each icon you have an iOS icon for. While you're at it, go ahead and get your apps back in the order you want them on your home screen. So, we've got our home screen laid out like an iPhone, we've got icons that look like an iPhone, now how about a wallpaper that looks like an iPhone?

Wallpapers

Apple's had a lot of distinctive stock wallpapers over the years, and while I would never, ever use a stock wallpaper because that is the most basic way of making a phone your own and we offer you five new wallpapers every Wednesday ... well, if you want to use one of Apple's coveted stock wallpapers, reddit's got ya covered.

There are also a variety of wallpaper apps that will add the parallax effect to your wallpaper to further mimic the iPhone, but most of them simply aren't worth the time or the space on your phone. If you want your wallpaper to move, you can turn on Wallpaper scrolling in Nova Settings > Desktop > Scroll > Wallpaper Scrolling.

Quick Settings

Honestly, the Quick Settings shade in stock Android is pretty decent, on some devices it's customizeable, and apart from it coming from the top rather than the bottom of the screen, they're not terribly different. Thanks to Nova Launcher Prime's Gestures, you can even set Swipe Up to Expand Quick Settings. But if you want a quick settings panel that looks more familiar, well, there's an app for that.

Smart Control adds an overlay to your screen that will bring up a quick settings panel that is remarkably Apple-esque and is pretty responsive. Because it is an overlay over the screen however, it can interfere with gestures and controls in other apps, so be mindful of that if you play a lot of games or do a lot of scrolling up from the bottom of the screen. Also, if it crashes while it's an overlay of the screen, you might have to perform a hard reset to regain control of your device. Which is why I highly recommend using the Quick Settings panel that comes with your phone.

Messaging

There's no iMessage for Android. Apple doesn't care about making its awesome messaging system available for other platforms; it wants you to buy their devices for their awesome messaging system. #SorryNotSorry. Now, there's a lot of different SMS text messaging apps with different styles, but I think Textra gets pretty close while still being material and fitting in with your new Android system.

Textra allows you to make the text bubbles the same shape as they were in iMessage, and you can make them that same soothing blue — because Apple has conditioned its users to hate green for some reason. You can even have new message popups with quick reply like you did on your iPhone.

If you're having issues with your text messages since you came over to Android, here's how to release your texts from iMessage's iron grip.

Lock Screen

If you want to use Android Pay, you can stop reading right now, because you can't use a third-party lock screen with Google's contactless payment app. Still want a lock screen that looks like Apple's? Okay, there are a breathtaking number of clones on the Google Play Store, but HenryOS's Passcode Lock Screen has over a million installs and over 35,000 reviews, and balances customization with a very faithful 'homage' of Apple's UI.

Calendar

While Google Calendar is pretty good, if you miss the Apple Calendar, well, you can get close with a few others. Cal by Any.do, the makers of the popular to-do app, make a lovely cross-platform calendar with a very similar feel. If that's not your speed, check out our favorite calendar apps for Android.

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How close to an iPhone can you get your Android phone? How close do you want to? Are there any apps that remind you of the other side of the mobile ecosystem? Share them in the comments below, and if you're new to Android, be sure to check out our forums for help with your new phones!

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The beating heart of Google Home is reportedly Chromecast hardware

When Amazon released its home assistant product Echo, they anticipated tapping into a small niche market. It was a surprise to everyone when the little living room companion device became a runaway success, and suddenly other companies began scrambling to build competitors to engage this new market. Primary among these was Google, who was rumored to be building an Echo competitor earlier this year and who formally unveiled Google Home at the 2016 Google I/O event. Now, according to a report by The Information, we're learning that the Google Home is essentially the next evolutionary step for the Chromecast.

Inside the elegant white casing of Google home resides the exact same ARM-based microprocessor and wifi chip that constitute the Chromecast. As The Information puts it, "Home will essentially be a microphone, speaker, plastic top with LED lights and a fabric or metal bottom—wrapped around a Chromecast."

This is actually a good thing. Historically, Google hasn't been so great at making successful commercial hardware. It's no surprise that once they found a hit in Chromecast, they would start implementing this tech in as many ways possible. For instance, we're seeing a bevy of Google Cast TVs hit the market this year, which are basically television sets with Chromecast built right in.

See also: Google Home officially announced, takes aim at Amazon Echo2

This 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' methodology should work well for the search giant. Chromecast has proven to be an effective intermediary between a variety of devices and the internet, and once you can get a user's intent to Google's online software, well… Software and information have always been Google's forte. Amazon and Apple, though they excel in the hardware department, simply can't compete in this realm. This means that even though Google Home is practically just a Chromecast given ears, it has the potential to quickly dominate this playing field. After all, Amazon Echo costs $180. A Chromecast is only $35. This could indicate that Google will be able to brutally undercut the cost of the Echo. As an added benefit, Google is saying their home assistant will quickly gain multilingual functionality. Currently, Alexa only speaks English.

We don't have a launch date for home yet, but What do you think about the revelation that Google Home leans hard on Chromecast hardware? Give us your opinions and forecasts in the comments below!

Next: How to set up Chromecast with your Android phone

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