## 1 Introduction  
Push notifications are considered to be a means of communication to provide time-sensitive information and updates to smartphone users [1]. These timely nudges in the form of auditory, visual, and/or haptic signals are delivered to catch the user's attention [2]. Such notifications can be in the form of messages, emails, alerts, alarms, and various other events. Recent research suggests that users receive 63.5 push notifications on average per day [3]. It has been noted that a higher volume of notifications is linked with higher screen time as well as an increase in smartphone checking frequency [4]. However, research suggests excessive smartphone usage can have detrimental effects on users' psychological well-being [5]. These negative effects can emerge in various forms such as information overload-induced stress [6], along with behavior and attention-related problems [7].  
The nature of notifications is to catch the user's attention, which provokes an impulsive desire for the user to check their phone [8]. However, attentional capabilities are known to be a limited resource with certain boundaries. Earlier research has addressed this as an attention bottleneck, where there are limits in both what we can perceive and what we can take action on in contexts where multitasking is required [9]. Moreover, simultaneously performing tasks requires further cognitive power, thus increasing the overall cognitive load [10] and causing push notifications to be more interruptive.  
Interruptions caused by notifications have negative consequences on users' emotional states [11]. Several studies have elaborated on users being annoyed and frustrated by ill-timed notifications, identified by examining different interruption moments and how they impact users' emotional states [12]. Other researchers have observed users stating their disturbances which inherently results in technostress. The notification-induced stress can be overwhelming enough to cause users to uninstall smartphone apps [6] or even culminate in alert fatigue due to information overload [13].  
Push notifications are diverse in type and content [3], which adds another layer of complexity when managing notifications and attempting to identify suitable approaches to improving the overall experience. In this context, an experience can be defined as subjective data that expresses notification affairs and the influence it has on everyday life.  
This study aims to shed light on how users manage notifications in their daily lives, how they prioritize and engage with them, and more importantly, how they perceive the notification experience as a whole. By implementing a diary study, we focused on examining in-depth user attitudes and perceptions toward notification experiences in a qualitative nature. The goal is to map out notification-related experiences reported by smartphone users to help improve notification management systems.  
The following research questions were posed to reach the objective:  
1. What common themes emerge from smartphone push notification experiences?
2. What relationships exist between the user's push notification experience, perceived frequency, and perceived importance?