Isn't this really more about OCD-ish behaviors than notifications? There's no good reason you have to act on every notification you receive unless you want to. In most cases you have a choice to even receive the notifications in the first place. Notifications are great if they are used responsibility. To me this is just part of a bigger trend where it seems to be socially acceptable to use technology as an excuse to justify bad behaviors.
Possible, though personally, I have to turn off sounds to my instant messages; and, if I'm anywhere near my up-turned phone, just the sight of a blinking message is enough to completely derail me. My response? no sounds on IMs, minimal flashing if I can control it (sometimes even just having the window go into the not-flash,-but-constant-on mode when it gets a message); and, for my phone, flipping it over so I can't see the notification blinker.
But yes, I obsessively need to help people by responding to those notifications, so I can understand the struggle.
