There was a time, not long ago, when my phone was just that; a phone. It called people. It texted.
Sometimes, if I felt very adventurous, I would use the calculator. My relationship with this device was very easy; I used it and it waited quietly like a well-trained gadget, doing nothing extra. Those days of simple life are gone and turned to dust.
My current phone has the attitude of an attention seeking toddler with the persistence of a door-to-door salesman. It wants attention at all times. Meals, conversations, sleep, and even the most private of bathroom visits get interrupted by its buzzing, chiming, and flashing.
It does not want to be kept in my pocket. No, it wants to be the focus of my whole world and my endless push notifications help it do that. This drama queen likes to call it an app now reminds me of everything from the boring, “Someone you don’t know from high school has a birthday today,” to the ridiculous, “It’s been 37 minutes since you last opened this app- we miss you!” This needless bombardment of notification have turned out to be what should be a great weapon into a rude companion that never stops talking.
Consider last Tuesday, also known as the day I received an avalanche of notifications. 17 alerts separated into three emails, four news alerts, six social media notifications, two app updates, one game reminder and a weather update. I found all of these to be utterly useless.
Of my emails, not a single one was of importance. When it came to the news, everything was disheartening. Most of the social media notifications consisted of strangers liking comments that I had to write ages ago.
The two app updates I didn’t even need and the game reminder was completely pointless as I was not planning to play it anytime soon. As for the weather update, I would have gotten the information by simply looking out of the window so it served no purpose to me. By the time I had finished breakfast, I had received seven more notifications.
This included one from my banking app, stating that I had succeeded in making a payment. This felt more annoying than relieving as it is obvious nobody stops to think whether payments can get randomly refused. This isn’t sustained communication, rather it feels that my life has turned into a never ending advertisement.
It is not only the amount of digital distractions that have a negative impact, but also how they do it. Each notification is meticulously planned to release dopamine much like a slot machine would, making it impossible for us to turn our screens off. Most of us have become Pavlov’s humans; having been programmed to respond to notifications and alerts regardless of knowing that 9 times out of 10 they are spam.
What’s even more alarming is the extent to which individual apps will go to catch your eye, almost as if your jealous partner is trying to get you back. Last week, my weather application made every effort to grab my attention and proclaimed that it was even snowing in Minneapolis. I live in Virginia, out of all the cities I certainly don’t intend to visit anytime soon, Minneapolis isn’t anywhere near the top.
For some odd reason my weather app thought it was snowing in the city I have zero interest in, making that information completely pointless for me. My fitness tracker has begun to annoy me with its passive-aggressive notifications. “We noticed you haven’t moved in a while,” it chirps like a wise coot willing to offer tips for productivity when in fact I do not need any.
Sometimes, it reminds me I have been sitting too long during meetings just to vibrate with the intention to get me moving. This causes me to furiously tap my wrist to mute it, imbeciles glare as it reminds me I should not be in control of my own body. Nothing screams “professional” quite like fighting with my hand during a budget discussion.
People do say, social media notifications can set the wick on the bomb. These platforms remind me of the tiniest details about everything, which is infuriating. “Jane commented on Robert’s post about Laura’s photo,” my phone screams this at me like I woke up from the dead.
It’s not like people I just so happened to meet at a conference three years ago and never spoke to again. Dating apps are even more annoying because they send careful notifications to suggest a romantic context, but they are still vague. Notifications such as “A new person has liked you!” are meant to mislead you into downloading the app but once you do, you find out that you have to pay $29.99 to find out who the mysterious admirer is.
This is emotional blackmail disguised as a love token. Food delivery apps seem to have overlooked the precise signals of hunger. They send reminders like “it’s lunch time” as if it’s some kind of announcement they have to make and especially for us who might forget our meals.
One aggressive pizza store sends notifications around dinner time asking if I’m “feeling cheesy tonight.” That no longer sounds like a food question, let alone a good one, but an unfortunate pick up statement. Even my meditation app, which is supposed to remove stress, sends anxiety filling notifications that lack mindfulness care. It suggests, “you seem tense, time to meditate?” It gives you the perfect reason to feel anxious.
The worst of these notifications come from random apps that I barely use, which have developed a notification strategy that can only be referred to as “digital desperation”. Like an overbearing ex, they are simply incapable of grasping what ‘give me space’ means. “We haven’t seen you in awhile,” they cry as if I have harmed them simply by not engaging with them.
One shopping app that I used once two years ago still reminds me every week that my “cart is waiting.” These reminders are very similar to something a child would say when left abandoned. Of course, I’ve wanted to combat this. In an attempt to tip the scales in my favor, I have deep drilled into settings pages and have toggled off notifications with a commitment of someone trying to defuse a bomb.
I have tried setting Do Not Disturb, Quiet Hours, Focus times, and every other digital barrier that modern phones have. Yet, it seems that the notifications still keep flooding in like water squeezing through cracks in a dam. Sure, I can turn off email notifications, but now the email app itself puts a badge count that pops up on my home screen like a digital tumor.
I can silence social media alerts, but then I would have to suffer the consequences of the apps spamming me with emails about everything I am ‘missing.’ It truly feels like engaging in a game of whack-a-mole with a foe that possesses infinite moles and even more infinite patience. Every time I figure out how to disregard an app’s notification tactic, a system update always comes to undercut me by resetting my permissions or including ‘features’ that try to interrupt me as much as possible. I’m fighting a battle against an enemy that literally resides within my pocket.
This bombardment of notifications does not come devoid of consequences, as the real value goes beyond wasting seconds on checking useless alerts. Its depleting our attention span and enabling a state of constant distraction. Research suggests that simply listening to the vibrating tone on the mobile lowers cognitive capacity chances, regardless of whether the phone is checked or not.
Each time I get a ping, it feels like a tiny brain injury. About a month ago, I turned off every single notification that was non-essential and was amazed by how difficult it was on the first day. As someone trying to refrain from smoking, I found myself restless along with twitchy and worried.
Some people say proof is in the pudding and my balanceag of feeling notification dependence was constant for 24/7 which bludgeoned me in the face. I was starting to feel calmer, focusing on tasks for longer periods of time. I managed to read an entire chapter without any interruptions, which is astonishing given today’s world.
Most importantly, my phone which used to control my day-to-day activities like a madman turned back into what it truly is, a simple tool. Of course, the results were far from ideal. I happened to forget about one friend’s spontaneous gathering.
I was also slow to respond to a work email, but it wasn’t as critical as it sounds. And yes, I always do end up being the last person to know about the mildly interesting gossip which I unfortunately have to put up with for 8 hours. By the end of the week, my attention had improved considerably and small losses like these were less frustrating than they would have been otherwise.
I felt as if I had escaped from a prison cell and towards the sunlight. Moreover, I was shocked my battery lasted nearly two days. Most important of all, I had finally been able to fully think through an idea without any digital distractions.
In any case, this digital peace treaty was never meant to last. Modern life requires work, communication with family, and other activities, which means some notifications had to come back. Still, I kept the majority silenced.
I’ve been quite remorseless when it comes to the apps that are permitted to rudely disrupt me during the day. I do not lose notice of the fact that smartphones, or rather attention sappers, have taken a whole new twist. Instead of serving their initial purpose to enhance productivity, they have taken over every aspect of our lives.
The devices’ primary goal is to keep us constantly engaged. It is even more ironic that what was initially positioned as convenience has turned into forceful engagement, with every new notification feeling like a tightened leash. This is perhaps the most alarming feature of this relationship: new apps are designed to help users make more phone calls and texts—digital methadone for our attention deficit.
We are outsmarting technology with the same tools that created the problem, a self-consuming irony. In any case, guess my phone just told me that an acquaintance I met at a party posted a picture of their lunch and I have several new notifications. In addition, let’s not forget: my phone step tracker says I am below average for a Tuesday, an app I don’t remember downloading requires urgent updating, oh, and there might be the possibility of rain, somewhere on the planet.
From the looks of things, these issues are urgent.
