Originally posted on Medium.

they really do. I have most of them turned off on my phone.

first, idk who to blame about these, but there is this class of notifications that are like

“feeling hungry? order UberEats now!!”

someone gave someone this lever to pull to increase engagement. the first someone upsets me, and i sometimes think about the other someone and also get angry.

i turn all of these off, when I can actually turn them off. in the case where an app doesn’t let me disable them, I turn off all notifications for that app. they’ve lost my trust.

once you start turning these off, you realize that most notifications are actually just avenues for companies trying to boost your engagement with their apps. like those reddit notifications you get about random people posting? totally for engagement. do you actually need to hear from them? no! turn them off. give me my autonomy: i’d rather pull than be pushed.

also i wish I could cancel badges. i turned them all off, because WHY. there’s something in my brain that makes me want to clear them. maybe i have a problem. idk. I can’t disable the settings app badge though so that’s bothering me right now but don’t worry we have more to talk about

messaging notifications

ok, so once we’ve cut these out, we now have what I call “messaging notifications.” these are actually things I care about. like my friends reaching out to me!

however, i turn these off sometimes too via Do Not Disturb. often people reaching out to me can really take me away from my present or ruin my focus. imagine you’re having dinner with someone but you keep reading messages from other people or messaging them — isn’t that really sad? you literally have someone of infinite depth right in front of you! talk to them!

but also, there are some notifications that are really mentally heavy, and could completely ruin your day. i’ve definitely gotten some of these messages. if possible, i’d like to handle these things when i’m not working or having a good time with friends, since it’ll just change my reality. you know, there used to be times when people weren’t reachable 24/7. maybe there was some implicit wisdom to that (can’t be explicit because people back then probably had no idea we’d be where we are now).

work

ah yes. work. work notifications. these are a mess. i actually always have them disabled, but when I need to be around to respond to things (like support oncall), i dedicate 1/3 monitors to a fullscreen slack. idk if that’s a good idea. it has its pros and cons. try it out (well if you have a screen to spare).

some people really do be slacking all day. like, you know, using the slack app. not me; I find that most of my work is creative or like churning something out. don’t need to talk to someone to do that!

conc

not sure if this helps anyone out there, but i’ve just been so DONE with notifications as a concept. i hope you can claim some of your autonomy back. ❤

stephen

further reading