[thirdsight]

Is having to pull your phone out of your pocket that bad? Do you even need to look at it unless it makes a loud noise at which point you can close to defer until later? Constant distraction is poisonous. On your arm, it's going to be worse.

[bryanlarsen]

On your arm, it's much less distracting. If my phone vibrates and not my arm, I know I can ignore it. If they both vibrate, it takes half a second to glance down and decide whether it's important or not. And if it's one of those many "medium priority" type notifications that seem to form the bulk of your notifications, you're much more inclined to just ignore it rather than just answer because you've got your phone in your hand anyways...

[haswell]

It really depends on the situation. Generally, if my phone is in my pocket it means I'm on the go or performing some activity where pulling it out would be less convenient (or very challenging).

Going back to my airport example, I generally put my phone in my computer bag when traveling to avoid accidentally losing it. This is a case where not having to pull out the phone right away is extremely useful.

Other activities that benefit from not taking out the phone: grocery shopping, shoveling snow, working out, cycling, riding public transportation, cooking, and I could keep going.

Constant distraction is another conversation altogether, but I generally don't find this to be an issue by configuring my notifications to only show things I probably need to know about right away.