Notifications off: why I can’t stand my phone beeping with alerts all the time
Constant, unwanted and unnecessary – social media notifications are an irritating distraction from the daily grind of adulting
I got a smartphone notification from Apple recently, telling me: “You have a new memory”. It was reminding me that I had a photo on my camera roll of my goddaughter, taken several months ago. Thanks, Apple. Totally unnecessary, however. My goddaughter, Gabriella, is a cherub and I will never forget her.
The “reminder”, which lit up my phone screen as I was working, was just one more technological distraction.
It seems Apple is trying to keep abreast of fierce competition in the battle for eyeballs and revenue in the “new economy”. In this instance, it backfired, though. Instead, it redoubled my determination to turn off those annoying smartphone notifications. Don’t people have anything better to do than look at phone screens all day? Yes, of course we do! It’s called “real life”.
Take Twitter, for example. OK, it’s a medium that’s mainly populated by journalists spamming each other and “internet marketing” types who buy thousands of followers using bots, follow you so you will follow them back, then unfollow you.
Twitter also sends out an increasing number of notifications, such as “Maria Tam, Elsie Leung and Leung Chun-ying shared Xi Jinping’s tweet”. Seriously, do we care? Or “John Fok hasn’t tweeted in a while. See his tweet”. Get lost. For a start, I haven’t a clue who the Fok John is.
All these interweb companies want our clicks as they and advertisers grapple with the challenges of an ever-evolving moneymaking landscape. But their push to reel us into their orbit may be self-defeating, turning us off instead. That’s right: notifications off.
Oh, one more thing. Follow me on Twitter: @marcosharpy
