[HN Gopher] Teens inundated with phone prompts day and night, re...
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Teens inundated with phone prompts day and night, research finds
Author : canthandle
Score : 124 points
Date : 2023-10-01 18:35 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nbcnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nbcnews.com)
| thenerdhead wrote:
| Jonathan Haidt has done a great job advocating this problem and
| is writing a book coming out this next year called "The Anxious
| Generation":
|
| https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/phone-free-schools
|
| https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-repor...
|
| https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/social-media-mental-ill...
|
| This isn't something that can be solved with "better tech". It is
| something that is solved with "less tech" or "no tech" entirely.
|
| I wrote a book on this topic too as a millennial who grew up as
| one of the first waves of smartphones and social media users. I
| firmly believe it contributed to mental health challenges. We
| need to find a point where we say we've had "enough".
| pradn wrote:
| There's absolutely no need for a book length treatment for this
| problem, but the way ideas work in this society, they aren't
| taken seriously unless there's a single-topic book with a
| catchy title, with an attendant book store tour, podcast blitz,
| and morning show invite.
|
| It's incredibly obvious that we should not be on our phones all
| time, and more so for kids.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| That's seriously what FocusMode is good for on iOS/iPhone and
| Mac. Get them setup and choose the limited stuff you want and
| need to hear from. Less is more, do what the President does.
|
| It goes a long way towards relieving the anxiety of feeling
| there's something important but not remembering the thing
| itself or its temporal context.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _It is something that is solved with "less tech" or "no tech"
| entirely._
|
| i don't believe that. I love technology and always want to have
| access to a computer (although I also love leaving it off and
| using paper or analog tools).
|
| But I have a pretty unforgiving standard for people-misusing-
| technology. Last week I went into a store I hadn't seen before,
| specializing in imported Asian liquors, drinks, cocktail stuff.
| I decided to buy a fruit drink. Approached the counter, pulled
| out a $5 bill, and the guy said 'oh we're not taking cash' and
| waved at the terminal. It would have been just as easy to whip
| out my card, but instead I said 'I don't shop at stores that
| don't handle cash' and put the drink back (though with
| hindsight I should have left it on the counter, or left the $5
| and walked out with my drink, giving up the change).
|
| This was rude behavior on my part. But the squeaky wheel gets
| the grease, at least in the US. If you're polite, nobody cares.
| michaelchisari wrote:
| _The Burnout Society_ by Byung-Chul Han addresses this as well.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| So I'll advocate "Stolen Focus" by Johann Hari [0] and my
| "Digtal Vegan" [1]
|
| Johann's book has some surprises toward the end, that go way
| deeper into environmental and cultural factors. He ultimately
| sees it as a collective/societal problem with collective
| solutions. Mine tries to advocate for mindful control and
| rejection of toxic tech and makes it a more individual
| battle.
|
| [0] https://stolenfocusbook.com/
|
| [1] https://digitalvegan.net/
| swayvil wrote:
| Many sites ask me (just after the cookies) if they can "send me
| notifications". I always opt to block of course.
|
| However every place I shop at takes the sales conversation as an
| invite to a marketing conversation. That's 90% of my emails.
|
| If business was a dog it would be flatulent.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Article quotes kids as young as 11-14 being inundated by
| notifications ... kids that age do not need phones. Its really
| that simple. Parents need to start being parents again.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Why just teens?
| malux85 wrote:
| I don't know for sure but I can guess why it would be worse for
| teens.
|
| During your teenage years there's a lot more FOMO as you are
| trying to establish yourself in your peer group and the social
| hierarchy in general. This must-check-that-notification then
| compelled them to react to it, which generates more
| notifications in a feedback loop.
|
| Compare that to now, when I'm in my mid 30s, if an app
| generates too many notifications I will revoke its permissions
| to notify me very quickly, all of my social interactions are
| more asynchronous and slower and deeper, since I'm not being
| interrupted by notifications all the time and am communicating
| on my own terms
| ryandrake wrote:
| I think as parents, our job is to help teach them that this
| FOMO is fake and unnecessary, that the perceived "social
| hierarchy" is meaningless and nobody will care about it after
| high school is over. So they don't have to wait until they
| are 30 to figure it out on their own.
| malux85 wrote:
| I completely disagree. It's important to teach them to
| time-box and have the self discipline to try and control
| these things - but participation in the social structures
| of peers and society during the formative adult years is
| crucial to developing the social skills of being an adult.
| To dismiss them as meaningless is very naive.
|
| Arguing that the social heirarchy is meaningless is utter
| nonsense because our work structures, family structures,
| political structures, friend structures, distribution
| structures, financial systems AND ENTIRE CULTURE is built
| upon social hierarchies, and while you might argue that the
| social heirarchy at high school is meaningless once
| highschool is over, the skills gained in navigating it will
| persist through the persons entire adulthood.
| almatabata wrote:
| Just because they chose to focus on teens does not mean that
| adults do not have similar issues. Not every article needs to
| encompass every single category affected by a problem.
| rkagerer wrote:
| We need to start treating human attention as the scare, valuable
| resource it is. (Ditto for consumer goodwill).
|
| Defaults on smartphones today make them worse than the annoying,
| noise-making novelty toys you used to buy your neighbours kids to
| drive their parents crazy.
| clnq wrote:
| Perhaps the problem is not the quantity of notifications, but
| quality. If these notifications were about meaningful social
| interactions, like how Apple or Google shows them in their
| marketing materials - friends calling and messaging friends, then
| it wouldn't be concerning. Most of the stuff real people get
| notified about, though, is really made by machines for machines
| (given the volume of information).
| MichaelRo wrote:
| My kid (soon to be 11 years old) has this problem and is (almost)
| driving me nuts. There are three causes of this:
|
| 1) He's dumb. Will click and install on any crap he comes by.
|
| 2) He doesn't know to operate his phone. Every now and then I
| take his phone and turn off notifications for the apps I saw that
| popped them.
|
| #3: This one's mysterious to me as well. Somehow they (the
| notifications) get re-enabled back. I'm disabling notifications
| (to the best of my knowledge, navigating arcane settings paths),
| they disappear for some time then after a while, start popping
| again. No app ever asked me "I noticed you turned off
| notifications ... ahem, do you want them turned back on?". No,
| they just turn it back automatically ... when I navigate back to
| the arcane settings path hidden under some 3 to 7 unintuitive
| menu layers.. the setting's back on. Think "Settings .. Privacy
| protection .. special permissions ... notification access" ...
| each of these steps hidden among 10 to 20 other menu options.
| What chances does a kid have to fight this crap?
|
| I dunno, just using the apps seems to enable them after a while.
| And it's not just "Malware Disguised As Game XYZ". YouTube,
| Netflix, Facebook... all these bounce back, on my phone as well.
| Just seems that not so often as on my kid's and also I disable
| them back promptly when it happens so it's a manageable level of
| annoyance.
|
| My kid's phone though ... I call him and he doesn't reply. Why?
| Coze he turns the sound volume off, just so he can have some
| peace of mind. Otherwise it's "ping ping ping ping", relentlessly
| throughout the day and night.
|
| >> From the article: "Half of 11- to 17-year-olds get at least
| 237 notifications a day" .
|
| That seems about right. It's maddening. Barely manageable as a
| tech-aware adult, in the hands of a kid, today's phone technology
| and it's inability to stop this crap it's the incarnation of
| evil.
| xyst wrote:
| The true problem here is you. You are the parent. Teach your
| child properly. This is your responsibility.
| swayvil wrote:
| Could you get him a dumber phone? Maybe one of those minimalist
| e-ink phones. They're nice.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Number 3 isn't a mystery after all, if you consider that some
| apps will tie features to notifications or re-prompt
| graypegg wrote:
| This is very true. The simple explanation is your son is
| turning them back on without noticing. Uber Eats is the
| example I can think of, where in order to get notifications
| about arrival, you need to enable ALL notifications,
| including its spam ones. I'm sure this sort of lock-out + beg
| screen is happening in the apps your son uses.
| lolinder wrote:
| > in the hands of a kid, today's phone technology and it's
| inability to stop this crap it's the incarnation of evil.
|
| I'm going to be that guy: this honestly just sounds like you're
| abdicating your parental responsibility and placing the blame
| on the tech. Yes, the tech is bad, but there's no reason why
| your kid should be subjected to the full weight of its
| awfulness besides that you let him.
|
| Step one is to question whether a smartphone is even necessary
| at this age. I understand feeling the need to have them be able
| to reach you, and pay phones and school landlines are less
| accessible than they once were. But why a smartphone? Peer
| pressure is not a good enough answer.
|
| If there is a compelling reason for a smartphone (like the
| other commenter whose school bus system inexplicably requires
| kids to have an app) then iOS has pretty robust parental
| controls from what I understand, but I personally would go
| further and buy an Android phone and install even stronger
| controls. There are FOSS Android apps that allow you to block
| everything except for a few whitelisted apps, and there are
| others that can impose time limits.
|
| A pretty simple combination of apps can create an experience
| that is suitable to any age, gradually enabling more
| functionality as you trust him more. We've even done this with
| our 4-year-old and an old tablet, giving him access to Khan
| Academy Kids with a time limit.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Aren't you able to solve #1, by locking down your kid's ability
| install anything?
| liquidpele wrote:
| Yes. IPhones (and android too iirc) also have a robust screen
| time system we use for our kids. Problem is that Apple
| doesn't make it very easy to use if you're not familiar with
| tech... and I've seen several frustrating UX/sync bugs with
| it. Could be a lot better, but it's there - especially
| important to limit them charging in-game purchases to your
| card without prompting for approval.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| You handed your 11 year old a smartphone?
|
| That's brave. My parents handed me one when I was in 9th grade.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| Not only that, he's using my Google account, so it's managed
| as one of my devices :) With full access to unrestricted
| YouTube premium, Google Play, etc.
|
| He's only got limits with respect to the time he spends on
| the phone or PC. So far hasn't discovered or been interested
| in "naughty" content.
|
| I was forced to live in the "middle ages", communist Romania
| with no TV, no electricity, go to bed at candle's light, half
| an hour of cartoons on TV per week when that wasn't canceled
| to show the achievements of The Great Leader instead. I won't
| deny my kid access to entertainment and technology in the
| name of some dreamed up "Amish lifestyle / return to
| innocence" because there's no such thing.
| lolinder wrote:
| You don't have to pick between leaving your kid completely
| unsheltered from exploitation by capitalist forces and
| being Amish.
|
| You yourself have seen that your kid isn't ready to fend
| off the exploitation by himself. Setting up parental
| controls on the phone is in exactly the same category as
| providing him with food and clothing and shelter--you're
| supposed to do for him what he can't yet do for himself.
|
| You can work on teaching him how to resist exploitation
| over time, but it's irresponsible to expose him to the
| worst excesses of capitalism while he's clearly so
| unprepared.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| That's fair enough.
| aidos wrote:
| I don't know how long ago that was so it's hard to say
| "things are different now", but my 11 year old can't take the
| school bus without having a mobile app for her ticket.
| masfuerte wrote:
| Are you sure? I don't have a smartphone and I also live in
| England. There are lots of services where the happy path
| expects a smartphone but I'm yet to find a service that
| actually requires it.
| maxrecursion wrote:
| Holy crap, that's insane. Whoever made the decision that
| all middle school children need smart phones to ride the
| bus is an idiot.
| lolinder wrote:
| How is that even legal? School buses are provided in part
| as a service to low-income families. Who decided it was
| okay to require parents of middle schoolers to shell out
| for a smart phone for their kids?
| gambiting wrote:
| If you are on benefits you can usually(in some countries
| anyway) get a basic smartphone and laptop free of charge.
| aidos wrote:
| As far as I can tell, someone has "digitised" the local
| buses by adding tracking and cashless payments to go
| along with the mobile app.
|
| They've also fragmented the services even more in the
| process since each bus company has their own version of
| the app (it's just a skinning of the base app). It means
| I need to check back and forth between two apps to see
| which buses are on time. Naturally you can only buy a
| pass that only works on one bus route. The ux is pretty
| garbage.
|
| Dealing with public transport in rural England definitely
| made me appreciate the seamlessness of transport in
| London.
| lolinder wrote:
| Oh, I was assuming a US-style school bus system where a
| separate yellow bus goes around and picks up the kids. It
| sounds like your kid rides a regular public transit bus
| to get to school? It's still unfair to have that system
| be inaccessible without a smartphone, but it's not as
| completely incomprehensible.
|
| It sounds like they definitely need better UX, and the
| buses around here very much accept cash still (or special
| tokens if you buy ahead).
| aidos wrote:
| The one that she takes in particular is a school bus, in
| a weird kind of way. Seems that it's run by a private
| company but it only services kids travelling to and from
| a couple of schools.
|
| But yes, it's not like the big yellow ones the rest of us
| know from The Simpsons.
| maxrecursion wrote:
| My kids are 6 and 2. Right now the wife and I are trying to
| hold off getting them phones until they are driving. I'm sure
| that could change when they're in middle school and high
| school, and whining because all their friends have phones.
| But, I'm going to try my best to hold the line.
| swayvil wrote:
| When you buy your kid a smartphone you are literally
| inviting a squad of marketing PhDs to stalk him 24-7.
| robocat wrote:
| When is the right time for your kid to learn how to deal
| with modern life problems?
|
| You can protect your kid for a while, but sooner or later
| your protection becomes a bigger problem.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'd love that option, but highschool mandates a smartphone,
| go figure: let's give attention deficit teenagers an always
| on distraction device and then complain about how hard it
| is to keep them focused.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| Granted I'm still very early in my parenting years but if
| my child's high school requires a smartphone I feel like
| I'm going to be viewed as a kook because I'll turn up to
| meetings shouting at them about how they've failed the
| kids from a social development standpoint.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You'll be battling 29 other parents as well who see their
| phone as a necessity for life.
| graypegg wrote:
| I hate to do a bit of snooping, but you list your birth year
| on your socials. We're of a pretty similar age; I also only
| got a smart phone in high school.
|
| I really do think the expectations from your friends when
| you're in your early teens in the current year, is that you
| have a smart phone. It's probably a major part of social life
| now, which would leave a kid pretty excluded. Not even
| touching the things in life that REQUIRE a smart phone now.
| (Restaurant menus, transit, maps, etc)
|
| Our childhood is pretty much gone from existence, despite how
| modern it feels. I feel for the GP author, best you can do is
| make things as protected as you can.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| I list my birth year on my socials? Time to take that off,
| that's unintentional. :P
|
| But yes, I feel your sentiment is right. Although there has
| to be some moderation--I wouldn't expose my children to the
| excess of social media. Internet addiction has messed
| enough with my life, the last thing I'd like to do is pass
| that on.
| nothingnew2 wrote:
| >in the hands of a kid, today's phone technology and it's
| inability to stop this crap it's the incarnation of evil.
|
| Yet you continue to pay his phone bills.
| drewg123 wrote:
| If its an iPhone, have your son add you as an emergency contact
| and enable overrides for text and phone.
|
| I had the same problem with my son running his phone 24/7 in
| DND, and this helped a lot.
| mkl95 wrote:
| I get phone prompts of random work stuff 24/7. At least the stuff
| I got as a teenager was meaningful.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Limit work app notifications then?
|
| I don't get email updates for work accounts, limit slack
| notifications and still put everything in a work profile. When
| I'm not working, I turn everything off but my pager.
|
| If you need me after my working hours feel free to page me, if
| IRS jot important enough to page then you'll have to wait until
| I get back to my desk.
| mkl95 wrote:
| I muted a ton of useless Slack channels everyone is expected
| to be in, but some bot notifications somehow get through. It
| got worse lately which I assume is an Android or Slack bug,
| or both. Slack + bad management is the ultimate job
| enshittifier.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Sure, but monitor group slack Channels on your computer.
| Sure everyone needs to be in #company-announce but you
| surely don't need to read that outside of the times you are
| at your desk.
|
| You can limit notifications to direct mentions and times as
| well.
| smeej wrote:
| One of my favorite things about running GrapheneOS without Google
| Play Services is that most apps aren't even set up to push a
| notification to me this way.
|
| Signal is, and it's the only app I care to be notified by!
| soultrees wrote:
| I run my phone on DND all day, everyday and block notifications
| from almost all apps. The amount of garbage we have vying for our
| attention on an hourly basis is overwhelming sometimes.
|
| The worst is the apps where you do want notifications on, like
| your food delivery apps so you know when your food is at the
| door, but those companies take that as an invite to send you
| daily marketing notifications and it all feels like a breach of
| trust.
| yujian wrote:
| i'm also on dnd all day, i just don't wanna be disturbed
| smeej wrote:
| I just turn notifications on for an app when I'm expecting one,
| and turn it back off when I'm done.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Uber and Lyft do this too. They're taking a page from the
| LinkedIn playbook and creating new categories of notifications,
| which you then have to hunt down and disable. There isn't one
| unified settings area for all notifications, which makes this
| extra tricky.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > There isn't one unified settings area for all
| notifications, which makes this extra tricky.
|
| Perhaps not in the App but in the OS there is. On Android you
| can pull a notification to the side to reveal a settings
| icon. Open it and click the settings icon in the top right to
| reveal granular app notification settings and the option to
| completely disable notifications.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Yeah I think iOS has some level of granularity, like "time-
| sensitive" versus other notifications, but you can't
| disable marketing versus ride-related notifications in one
| predictable place (you have to hunt through the app's
| privacy settings, IIRC, to find at least some of them). I
| wish Apple would provide a per-app setting that controlled
| necessary versus unnecessary notifications.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| The issue is that Uber marks all their stupid
| notifications as "time sensitive", so it's all-or-nothing
| with them.
| mortigi wrote:
| I would argue an even worse situation are apps like Wyze camera
| that really need notifications enabled to alert you to camera
| movement, doorbell usage or other pressing events.
|
| They have an option to opt out of marketing notifications but
| they ignore it if you check that and still send sometimes daily
| notifications of sales through of their crap.
| prepend wrote:
| I've used Wyze for a few years and get notifications of all
| my video events, but no marketing pushes. I think I had to
| set a setting but I am pretty happy with their pushes and are
| one of the few apps I leave on.
| sirspacey wrote:
| Same and fully agree that the day there is a delivery app that
| separates marketing from delivery notifications, that Will be
| my go to delivery app.
|
| Now I'm shocked how often people's phones "ding" at them. I've
| shared what I do, but most find it too scary that they will
| "miss something important."
|
| My long-term bet is that notifications will become the new
| "smoking" and Apple will update policies - eventually.
| xnx wrote:
| Is there a good utility that can act as an inbox for all
| Android alerts? Something that I could apply my own source and
| keyword filters to.
| asynchronous wrote:
| Uber is terrible at it.
| _puk wrote:
| I use Uber irregularly (when I travel). Every one of those
| notifications has resulted in me uninstalling the app as it
| reminds me I still have it on my phone since the last time I
| travelled.
|
| It may juice their stats, but I've definitely installed
| competitors apps when I need a taxi in a new place as opposed
| to just using the app I already have installed.
| Sarkie wrote:
| Uber Eats.
|
| I need the notifications for a taxi not marketing for
| groceries during the week
| bradgessler wrote:
| I'm pretty sure this violates Apple's App Store policies,
| but they seem to not care. Apple even sometimes abuses
| their notifications to promote new App Store releases and
| other Apple services.
| root_axis wrote:
| It's trivial to manage on android.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/w3A9Bge.png
| xcv123 wrote:
| There is an option somewhere in Uber Eats to disable
| marketing notifications. It's not easy to find.
| xwdv wrote:
| Postmates is an Uber Eats white label that basically pushes
| less of these notifications than Uber Eats proper.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Push notifications are the next regulatory target after
| cookies.
| thfuran wrote:
| I can't wait until I start getting bombarded with push
| notifications telling me I need to update my push
| notification consent settings.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| We're basically already there. Every time I open snapchat
| it begs me to re-enable spam notifications
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Many have said it's easy to disable non essential push
| notifications. I find it discussing that even when doing
| that, companies add new categories and have a default-opt-
| in.
| fancyfish wrote:
| iirc you can manage the notifications more granularly on
| the Uber website
| chinchilla2020 wrote:
| Using notifications as a marketing spam tool should be an
| instant-blacklist on any app store - equivalent to malware.
|
| These app developers are taking advantage of an unrelated
| function the cell phone to spam people.
| jt2190 wrote:
| I would like a "allow notifications for the next n hours/days"
| setting.
| eli wrote:
| Pretty sure iOS could do that with focus mode and a schedule
| or an Automator shortcut
| yieldcrv wrote:
| there is on iPhone, its a pause notifications for a specific
| app for x amount of time
| jprete wrote:
| That's the inverse, no?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| yes, accomplishes the same if you approach it that way
| nogridbag wrote:
| I was thinking of picking up the new Pixel Watch as I miss
| calls and notifications all the time and I thought it might
| reduce my phone time. But I'm also frustrated I receive too
| much marketing spam on apps in which I can't disable
| notifications. The last thing I want is those same
| notifications spamming my watch. Phone vendors keep releasing
| features that are useless to me when it seems we're all in
| agreement the notification spam is out of control. The vendor
| that gives us some way to mark notifications as spam will
| actually give me a reason to switch.
| 015a wrote:
| Bumble is really similar and disgusting. By default,
| notifications are enabled for both messages (which are a pretty
| good thing to have notifications turned on for) and once or
| twice a day Peak Cringe marketing push notifications. They have
| the ability to turn off specific kinds of notifications, but
| one of the categories is "The Good Stuff: Turning these off
| means you'll miss out on our most exciting pushes of all!" and
| I'm not unconvinced that _this_ is actually their daily CTAs to
| get you back into the app, because none of the other categories
| cover those.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| Well, you can turn everything off except messages so I don't
| see it as that big of a deal. I don't install many apps on my
| phone so going into the app settings and turning off
| notifications isn't a big deal.
| [deleted]
| underyx wrote:
| Another disgusting thing they do is push promo notifications
| with the title "1 new match?" where the question mark is the
| only difference from an actual app notification.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Amazon Music lets you turn off notifications but has blocking
| modal advertisements for upgrades or whatever (so like when you
| go in to start a playlist it makes you dismiss an advertisement
| first).
|
| I gripe at them pretty consistently and the various customer
| service people don't even know the basics of how the app
| functions. I'm sure someone is really proud that their campaign
| to harass all of their paying users has led to some number of
| subscription upgrades though.
| drewg123 wrote:
| I've taken to just disabling all notifications from food
| delivery apps when I don't have an order pending.
| suckitsam wrote:
| [02:35 AM] DID YOU KNOW Our new feature is almost ready and
| will be released any day now. Visit our blog to see how you can
| save up to 15% on your next order!
|
| If your app wakes me up with a pointless notification, it gets
| uninstalled for at least a month and a one-star review on both
| Apple and Android app stores.
| bertil wrote:
| This is entirely due to people not testing the impact of too
| many marketing notifications on whether people keep their
| notifications on--partially because Apple doesn't share that
| information with developers, so they have to guess based on who
| comes from a notification with UTM tags.
|
| Sending too many emails or too many notifications has an
| evident and enormous cost when you measure it (in lost
| opportunities that effective notifications could bring you). If
| your employer does not know what the threshold should be and
| does not routinely cancel certain notifications or emails
| because they don't meet that bar, they are losing a lot of
| money. It's probably the most accessible and impactful project
| you could work on if you want to prove your value.
| leesalminen wrote:
| I, too, have been running my phone on DND as of late and it's
| been pretty great. My wife disagrees :). I'm pretty sure iOS
| focus modes would allow me to configure notifications from my
| wife to come through while silencing the others but I'll wait
| til she tells me :).
| aidos wrote:
| It's fairly strightforward - if you swipe down from the top
| right and turn on DND there are 3 dots next to it and you can
| customise it. In there you can put a list of people that you
| want notifications from.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| Snapchat is like this, it's a communication app so you want the
| notifications on, but they flood it with marketing. And they
| refuse to use Android's notification "channels" to segment
| their notifications. Google should start enforcing that in
| their Play Store reviews.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| Just piling on here: Snapchat is the absolute worst.
|
| It's stunning to me that Google let's them get away with
| pushing ads through notifications.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Even Google "can't" follow their own rules, and mix
| transactional and marketing notifications in same channels.
| foooorsyth wrote:
| Android's notification channels API is clunky, and it's a
| completely useless OS feature when there's zero real spam
| enforcement at the Play Store level.
|
| I also just think it's a weird leaky abstraction to bubble up
| to user space. I'm just imagining my mom looking at a
| notification channels area in settings. It's a weird thing to
| ask users to conceptualize. Also it's not something you can
| really enforce at review-time. It would be something Apple
| and Google would need to constantly monitor -- at any time a
| VC could ask their investees to turn the screws on
| monetization/engagement and an app could become a spam
| machine overnight.
|
| Something better would be something like a non-removable
| option to report individual notifications from any app as
| spam, kinda like how it works will email. That way, Apple and
| Google could offload their monitoring overhead to machine
| learning models and punish companies acting in bad faith
| whenever there's enough user frustration to justify
| punishment
| olalonde wrote:
| Maybe they could use the click-to-dismiss ratio as a spam
| signal? Or even speed-to-dismiss (people probably tend to
| dismiss spam notifications more quickly).
| foooorsyth wrote:
| Maybe, but I think playing with meta-metrics is a
| dangerous game. I know plenty of people that just let
| notifications pile on. Some people have weird flows --
| e.g. see notification, don't interact with it directly,
| then manually navigate to and enter the app that
| notified.
|
| I really just think individual notifications (not apps)
| just need an explicit "this is spam" report button.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _e.g. see notification, don't interact with it
| directly, then manually navigate to and enter the app
| that notified._
|
| I do that sometimes. Not that it matters, because rarely
| any notification seems to deep-link into an app these
| days.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| I just want to add that a "report spam notification"
| feature would be a godsend and is the single best idea I've
| heard this month. It would change the attention economy
| entirely! At least until app developers began running bot
| farms to report each other's apps and poison the models
| jeffbee wrote:
| > it's a communication app so you want the notifications on
|
| That doesn't follow, IMO. I have tons of communication
| platforms that aren't allowed to notify.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Well for college kids and young people you need to know if
| an event is being created or you're being invited
| somewhere. I don't want to check my phone every 30 minute
| throughout the day and nobody around me is rigid enough to
| plan everything days in advance. Sometimes you wanna go on
| an impromptu road trip or to a party or maybe there's a
| test you didn't know about and the study group is
| organizing a session. Maybe you just wanna be a part of the
| conversion when you're friend group starts taking instead
| of always pitching in hours later.
|
| Typing this all out, these are all young people things so i
| don't expect someone with kids and a mortgage to have the
| same experience but imagine if your sms app was littered
| with ads and you couldn't turn off their notifications
| without missing messages from your children needing
| assistance. That's basically the type of dirty attention
| capture these companies are engaging in.
|
| If you don't understand why someone would use snapchat or
| other image based social messaging apps then you won't
| understand this particular issue as you don't have it.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It may surprise you, but people with kids or a mortgage
| also go to parties and organise events.
|
| I have Slack and MS Outlook on my phone for work, which
| are both communication apps, but notifications are muted.
| jacobsimon wrote:
| Maybe Apple should add a similar distinction between
| transactional and marketing notifications as we have with
| email.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| There's no way to flag spam / marketing. Uber for example
| occasionally sends marketing. But you can't really disable
| notifications. Instead, they (large companies) should just
| pay x cent per notification to Apple (not the user, because
| that would be seen as credit, eliminating the purpose)
| lostlogin wrote:
| That might work but what if the value of the spam
| notification is greater than Apples fee? Then it will carry
| on.
| robocat wrote:
| I only install Uber when I want to catch an Uber. Helps
| with notifications, tracking, and avoids impulse usage.
| bertil wrote:
| Apple would be gaining so much goodwill and transforming the
| industry if they asked for feedback on notifications, and
| trained an ML system to decide which one to show.
| corobo wrote:
| It used to be against App Store TOS to send marketing
| notifications full stop.
|
| Apple isn't interested in fixing this, they allowed it to
| happen in the first place.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| They do. They call them "time sensitive" notifications. You
| can use the "Focus" feature to delay less important types of
| notifications into a big batch at a specified time.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212608
| wodenokoto wrote:
| It's been asking me about these and from what it tells me
| on my phone I don't understand what they are getting at.
|
| But more importantly, how does it differentiate between
| "Your delivery has arrived" and "this weekend, 10% off all
| deliveries paid with mastercard from chase banks"
| mr_mitm wrote:
| On android, each app's notifications are categorized.
| For, say, Uber, I can enable the obvious useful
| notifications and can disable promotional notifications.
| Presumably Google penalizes ignoring or abusing this
| system.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The only android app I've ever seen with real categories
| is MS Teams.
|
| Of course changing any setting on Teams has catastrophic
| unpredictable effects on it... But at least they tried.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| You can't, tho, because no major apps actually separate
| the promotional notifications.
| gambiting wrote:
| Hahahahaha - sorry, the mere suggestion that Google cares
| enough about this to "penalize" anyone who ignores this
| system is actually really funny to me. No, of course they
| don't do any such thing. The system is entirely and
| completely optional, and developers have long ago
| realized that actually using it is to their own
| detriment, because users will just block the marketing
| notifications but leave the important ones, so they just
| bundle everything together. I have actually messaged
| several developers of some of the apps I use if they can
| fix this exact thing and the response has always been
| "sorry we don't have the technical ability to do this"
| which is obviously complete nonsense. But no, there isn't
| any penalty for not doing this from google.
| mr_mitm wrote:
| Huh. It really worked well for me so far. Interesting.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| You're lucky. I found that even Google doesn't respect
| their own categories, and happily bucket useful
| information together with spam.
| fooker wrote:
| Is it really that surprising to you that something Google
| has created works better than something Apple has created
| for a specific narrow problem?
|
| These are all trillion dollar companies, your allegiance
| is wasted.
| tazjin wrote:
| > how does it differentiate
|
| Probably through a pinky promise from the developers to
| call the right APIs.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Probably. And then I would _expect_ the app store review
| process to check.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Another piece is that all "time sensitive" notifications
| come with a button underneath to not let that app send
| time sensitive notifications anymore
| gyrovagueGeist wrote:
| > But more importantly, how does it differentiate between
| "Your delivery has arrived" and "this weekend, 10% off
| all deliveries paid with mastercard from chase banks"
|
| IIUC it is up to the app developer to tag the
| notifications they generate as time sensitive (or not)
| for iOS
| [deleted]
| jeffbee wrote:
| The strongest solution to this is to use the web sites instead
| of the apps. I only have a few apps I really need: all the
| Google apps, Strava, Garmin Connect, micromobility apps for
| bike and scooter share, and that's it. Everything else is a
| website. And none of these apps are allowed to notify. The only
| notifications I ever get are Apple Pay and Messages. I don't
| even let the voicemail app (Google Fi) notify because what kind
| of jerk leaves a voicemail?
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| this is the only way to use any modern software. the worst part
| is each app feels it's appropriate to nag you to turn on
| notifications
|
| best part is how all of these uis say "not now" or "maybe
| later" type of phrases cuz some overpaid PM thinks it will
| increase usage
| ryandrake wrote:
| I once tried disabling every notification at the app level, but
| it was hopeless. After going DND 24/7, my quality of life has
| measurably improved. I'd never go back.
| alexanderchr wrote:
| It is a breach of trust. I give apps access to my immediate
| attention so they can notify me of things that need my
| attention. Not for telling me about their new features or some
| crappy partner deal.
|
| For this reason I have a one strike policy for apps. One
| marketing notification and permissions are revoked. Missing out
| on surprisingly little although it has made me stop using some
| services entirely.
| [deleted]
| dataflow wrote:
| Starbucks is like this. They deliberately bundle together
| "Promotions & Order Status" to make sure you receive their
| junk.
| unixhero wrote:
| PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE ON SALE NOWWW
| sa-code wrote:
| Sounds like a good reason to give your business to someone
| else
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| So does Uber (+ eats); I don't want deals or vouchers, I
| don't want to sign up to your subscription service, I
| _only_ want to know when the car is arriving.
|
| Instagram I had to disable from notifications entirely, so
| now I miss messages from friends frequently, because the
| app bombards you with so much unrelated junk.
|
| I suspect these companies know this, they know we don't
| want spurious notifications, but they abuse whatever
| notification policies the OS provides in order to deliver
| you them anyways.
| s3p wrote:
| Yes!! Same here. ONE annoying advertisement or waste of my
| time and the app's privileges get revoked.
| donmcronald wrote:
| That's exactly what I do!
|
| Google and Apple could instantly fix the problem (of co-
| mingling essential and marketing notifications) _if they
| wanted to_. The current situation is like getting opted in to
| "street signs _and_ flashing billboards ". It's stupid.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| I have an iOS device, so can't speak for Google, but I
| suspect that's what Apple has been _trying_ to do.
|
| The problem is that these apps are essentially adversarial
| in their notifications. If you have a mechanism for "only
| the most essential notifications", then they simply mark
| all their notifications as "essential" (looking at you
| Uber). Try to limit their notifications using "only is
| summary" or disabling them and the app will gleefully deny
| you all notifications, rendering it basically useless. Uber
| is particular is guilty for this - the app is conspicuously
| free of meaningful notification controls.
| rodgerd wrote:
| The EU is about to make it literally illegal for them to do
| so, so no they can't.
| cjpearson wrote:
| Apple used to ban advertising push notifications. They
| began allowing them to avoid claims of anti-competitive
| behavior.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| on android this is a solved problem via notification
| categories.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| I recall some apps seemed to keep inventing new
| categories that I hadn't blocked yet.
| prepend wrote:
| I have something similar. I have one strike and I check for
| an app specific notification.
|
| Then I call them a jerk, turn off all nonessential
| notifications and give them one more strike.
|
| Interestingly, this works half the time.
|
| I'm waiting for Apple to eventually fix this and expect this
| is how they'll implement local AI with having really nice
| notification filters of "block messages like this."
|
| Of course google could do this, but I don't think they're
| interested in reducing notifications and popups based on the
| number of times google asks if I want to sign in or use my
| local to improve results. I've clicked "no" thousands of
| times yet they persist in asking.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Everybody is. I'm strongly of the opinion that all this 'needy
| tech' is a net negative and I try hard to keep it out of my life.
| But some of it, mostly associated with my kids schooling, is very
| hard to avoid. 10 emails per week about some school portal with
| 'an important message' (which you need to separately logged into,
| of course the message is so important that it can't be entrusted
| to mere email, even though the account recovery does use that
| same email) that ends up being nonsense but you're not able to
| block it because one day an actually important message might show
| up.
|
| Tech should serve us, but meanwhile instead of having terminals
| to the internet _we_ are now the terminals to the internet. Push
| notifications and all manner of intrusive interaction have become
| the norm, not the exception that they should be.
| aidos wrote:
| I just checked and there are 16 messages from one school in the
| last 7 days. The other school have managed 11. Those are
| emails, containing PDFs, containing important dates, if you can
| find them.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| At least they are e-mails. Schools and kindergartens in
| Poland all switched over to some garbage SaaS that
| incorporates a half-assed, barely functioning faux-e-mail
| service, so I have to actually log in to their confusing and
| ad-infested website every other day and check if the facility
| sent something new. I would _love it_ if we were using
| e-mails instead.
| aidos wrote:
| One of those is emails - the 16 notifications were push
| notifications through the app we have to use.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Yeah, dealing with schools doesn't fill me with hope about
| our kids future.
|
| Here's a email with a PDF containing important dates and
| updates about the cursive program.
|
| Lol, great.
| aidos wrote:
| It's even worse than that - every class has a parent led
| WhatsApp group set up where people then regurgitate the
| same info into the chat.
|
| I suggested maybe a calendar instead but got the standard
| "it's all too hard" responses.
| iteria wrote:
| Unfortunately they have to if they want to make sure
| parents get it. Every week my school's sends out a weekly
| email of everything happening in the quarter with
| emphasis increasing as time get closer. Then there's
| emails for when parents actually have to do something
| like sign up. There's physical flyers. There's the
| private Facebook like app that reiterates when parents
| have to do something. And the public Google calendar.
| Parents STILL miss it. And it's not even a few. At this
| point I just assume I have to tell people in person with
| my own mouth if I want to make sure they'll do the thing
| for their kid (and thus make my kid's day better)
| mavhc wrote:
| "We should have an app for our school, it's only $x00"
|
| Me: What does it do?
|
| Calendar and notifications about new posts
|
| Me: The website already does that, there's a button to
| click to subscribe to the calendar, another to subscribe
| to notifications, and you can "install" the website if
| you want, all with open standards
|
| Surprising, I actually won the argument and they didn't
| waste their money.
| nothingnew2 wrote:
| We have been ensnared by our own technology.
|
| https://netfuture.org/2001/Nov1501_125.html
| tivert wrote:
| > Tech should serve us
|
| It _should_ , but it's becoming more and more obvious that it
| won't and _can 't_. Literally every economic incentive it
| pushing towards 1) making it crappier until it's _just_ good
| enough to buy, 2) maximally exploiting its users.
|
| The market won't save us, because a competitor who tries to
| gain market-share by _not_ doing that crap will eventually turn
| around and join in the fun, once it 's in their interest.
|
| Mobile internet may end up as being a giant mistake. It opens
| up an entire superhighway of enshittification, makes us more
| dependent on centralized control, and doesn't provide a much
| better communication experience that the telephone network.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > But some of it, mostly associated with my kids schooling, is
| very hard to avoid. 10 emails per week about some school portal
| with 'an important message' that ends up being nonsense but
| you're not able to block it because one day an actually
| important message might show up.
|
| > Tech should serve us
|
| This problem isn't really the tech, it's the people behind
| these messages. Complain to them. You shouldn't be getting
| "OMFG IMPORTANT MESSAGE" alerts that, when you click on them
| say "LOL PTA meeting is this Thursday, and we need someone to
| bring coffee." That decision is being made by a person who you
| should be able to find and share your concern with.
| nothingnew2 wrote:
| Have you ever tried making this complaint? In the context of
| OP's comment about schools and technology, you will only ever
| get told "well, everyone else wants this". Sadly, this is
| true.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I agree it is a people problem but: the people are ignoring
| you and the tech is just asking for abuse and that tech too
| was implemented by a bunch of people who are ignoring you. So
| absent an outright block on all such messages with the
| significant risk that one day you'll miss something important
| there isn't all that much that you can do. Complaining
| certainly doesn't seem to work (at least: it hasn't worked
| for me) and the only thing that happened in terms of change
| is that there now are _two_ portals (and two apps...) to be
| used because half the teachers refuses to switch to the new
| one. It is frankly incredible how little attention is given
| to usability and respect for the user when the user is part
| of a captive audience. Short of changing schools there is not
| much that you can do and that isn 't an option for a variety
| of reasons.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _That decision is being made by a person who you should be
| able to find and share your concern with._
|
| Good point, and it generalizes to pretty much all the social
| problems "created by" tech. _The technology is fine_. Behind
| each misuse is a person or a group that commissioned said
| tech, and /or is applying it in malicious ways. Focusing on
| ills of technology, while ignoring the people wielding it for
| wrong, is just a distraction.
| nothingnew2 wrote:
| Rejecting "technology" is, IMHO, a perfectly rational
| response to the typical layers of consultants, sales teams,
| and general lack of knowledge of the fundamentals of tech
| that result in the isses described above. You can't win.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, but good luck getting those people to see things your
| way.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I would like to get journalists to see things my way, so
| we'd get a little less "oh look at the bad tech" and a
| little more of "look at the C-suite of companies X, Y and
| Z employing tech for bad" kind of articles, but I get the
| feeling that I won't get through to them either.
| Something about things your salary depends on not
| understanding, etc.
| rexpop wrote:
| > Behind each misuse is a person or a group that
| commissioned said tech
|
| How many cases of misuse implicates a structural flaw in a
| larger system? It's absurd to point the finger, over and
| over, at this or that "malicious" person. It's exhausting!
| They somehow keep getting incentivized to appear.
| edandersen wrote:
| Looks like another job for the EU!
| tazjin wrote:
| I got a weird, semi-experimental Chinese phone at the moment
| (HiSense A9, the defining feature is that it has an e-ink
| screen). It comes without Google Play services, and with no
| ability to install them. It also doesn't have the Huawei
| alternative services or anything, just nothing.
|
| A side-effect is that in 90% of apps notifications don't work,
| and it's really quite nice. The remaining ones that do work are
| apps where somebody put in the work to fall back to something
| else because they're actually important, like banking apps.
| standardUser wrote:
| I think it's vital to strictly manage what notifications we allow
| our phones to give us. Unfortunately, I've noticed a trend where
| apps are becoming less cooperative. Many apps will have a single
| all-or-nothing notification setting. Others have dozens of vague,
| poorly-labelled categories. And all of this is hidden several
| clicks deep in configuration settings. The result is that we
| can't be sure which notifications to allow because they are
| important (your food is here, your credit card has a security
| alert) and which are just marketing bullshit, which is almost all
| of them.
|
| I'd like to see a regulation requiring all notifications to be
| opt-in at app installation, with appropriate separation of
| notification categories, thereby putting the onus on the company
| to tell us why we should let them have our attention in each
| specific way.
|
| I also think it's vital to have our phones silenced (including
| vibration) for nearly all notifications all of the time. But
| that's more for my personal benefit.
| almatabata wrote:
| They probably did all of this to increase some KPI. The more
| fine grained authorization system problem resulted in less
| interactions. A lot of applications have too many incentives to
| keep you engaged as long as possible.
|
| I think apple has a nice setting where you can disable all
| notifications after a certain time slot in the evening. But
| this only works in the evenings, during the day they can still
| spam all day long.
|
| At this point i cannot trust application developers anymore so
| we probably need an additional layer between the application
| and the OS to filter the notifications. If applications do not
| want to give you fine grained permissions. All you can do is
| give the application the permission and then have an additional
| layer filter the notifications with some kind of firewall rule.
| standardUser wrote:
| A notification management system sounds like something that
| needs to exist, but how would it work if companies don't
| adhere to standards? I don't see any way out of this that
| doesn't first involve legislation.
| flashback2199 wrote:
| Machine learning! Android could filter notifications, easy.
| almatabata wrote:
| Technology moves really fast and laws move really slow.
| Hence i would prefer if we had a solution that would not
| require this kind of legislative intervention. But as you
| say a lot of applications will not play nice. And neither
| google nor apple really has the incentive to fix it on
| their side. Only an outside force could force this but i do
| not see how you would legislate this in a future proof way.
| And it would probably need to become a legislation adopted
| by multiple big companies before they would roll it out to
| all countries.
| foogazi wrote:
| Like Uber notifications- you don't want to miss any alerts for
| your trip, but then they abuse your trust and send you app
| updates, discounts or upselling
| xyst wrote:
| That would be nuts. What would be the incentive for people to
| "opt in" to marketing spam? Get 10% off your next order if you
| leave marketing notifications on for 1 month?
|
| Also the UI would be a mess. UX would be terrible. Most people
| would probably ignore the massive list of options, and then
| complain later as to why the app isn't notifying them :dead:
| root_axis wrote:
| One of the things I love about Android is the extremely granular
| controls on app notifications, it allows me to fine tune the
| disruption level of particular types of alerts or messages from
| app to app so that I'm only alerted to stuff I care about.
|
| edit: https://i.imgur.com/w3A9Bge.png
| rambambram wrote:
| Replace Android here with - let's say - a narcissistic person.
| The same sentence would still make sense. Something like "I
| love how my narcissistic partner requires an extremely granular
| control so I can adjust their level of disruption to me."
|
| I'm not making fun of you, it's just that your sentence made
| the similarities so painfully clear to me.
| root_axis wrote:
| "Android" is not the source of the notifications, the source
| is a nebulous cloud of apps that I installed on my phone. In
| a more apt analogy you could imagine each app as a person,
| some are more chatty than others, some with more important
| things to say than others, Android acts as an automated
| secretary that filters and transmits messages with the
| appropriate sense of urgency based on my preferences.
| pwython wrote:
| As an iPhone user, I turn off notifications for mostly every
| app except for Reminders, Calendar, etc time-sensitive stuff.
| For specific third-party apps that may also require important
| push notifications (eg. Uber), I can just go into the app and
| turn off "marketing/promo" notifications or whatever.
| haolez wrote:
| It's cool, but some apps (like food delivery apps) conflate all
| notifications into a single category, probably in an attemp to
| abuse the system.
| pgeorgi wrote:
| Give them 1* reviews for it, and encourage everybody you know
| to do likewise. It doesn't take that many of them to ruin
| somebody's day at the producer.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's not just some apps - it's all the major apps, _including
| Google software_.
| root_axis wrote:
| For sure there are some apps that abuse the system but most
| are quite good with it. And I can say that e.g. Doordash and
| Uber Eats both give you granular control over notifications
| related to your delivery updates, Uber actually gives you
| about a dozen categories of alerts.
| rkagerer wrote:
| And some apps (like Play Store) just have too many to wade
| through - pages and pages, with labels which in some cases
| aren't obvious as to what they do. The kitchen-sink overload
| is equally problematic.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| I see the 'food delivery app' come up a few times in this
| thread. Do you really need an app to use such services in
| some countries? Whenever I want to order a meal for delivery
| I just go to the restaurant's website, or sometimes look at
| the list of available restaurants in Thuisbezorgd.nl (part of
| the company which owns Grubhub etc.) and then visit the
| restaurant website and order there. If there's something that
| needs addressing, the restaurant just calls me (which is
| almost never). I can't imagine installing a bunch of
| dedicated apps for services which just require my money and
| some basic interface.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Where I live, the only restaurants that offer delivery are
| Chinese and Pizza, and this is pretty typical for most
| locales. What grubhub did was antagonistically create
| delivery services for literally every restaurant and
| collect those menus into their own app. If the restaurant
| doesn't cooperate they will just call the place and pretend
| to be a customer. They also buy ads so that when you search
| for <some restaurant delivery> you will get a dynamically
| generated grubhub page that 'looks official'.
| Double_a_92 wrote:
| It's a courtesy for the delivery person, so they don't have
| to ring and wait for you to get to the door. Instead you
| get a notification when they are getting close to your
| house (via GPS tracking).
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's a discoutesy to the customer to spam them with
| notifications after the order is complete.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| I just watch the map. I forgot the app I use even has
| notifications since I turned them off long ago.
| neogodless wrote:
| Well we can't expect teens to give up iPhones now can we?
|
| But yeah I like my OnePlus' physical "shut up!" switch!
| crawsome wrote:
| Phones back in the later 2000s were purposeful devices. Email
| spam was a problem.
|
| Now, notifications have replaced emails, and they are right in
| your face. Kids have not been educated on how to stop these
| things, and the average person seems to just let all the
| notifications and ads in.
|
| The people pushing to make these notifications easier to push to
| people are to blame. Not the teens.
| musicale wrote:
| I knew notifications were a terrible idea the first time I got a
| "Microsoft Word needs your attention" alert.
|
| Some idiot at Apple apparently decided that the user now worked
| for the software, rather than the other way around.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| AI bros, listen up
|
| Make an app that scans those notifications and takes an action
| automatically.
| [deleted]
| leesalminen wrote:
| AFAIK, an app can't influence notifications from other apps. At
| least on iOS. Less sure about Android. This is something that
| has to come from the OS level.
| sznio wrote:
| on Android you can set an app as an accessibility service to
| read notifications and as an assistant to make actions.
| bengale wrote:
| Almost everything that wants to send me a notification get put
| into scheduled summary on my phone. It's much easier to deal with
| them a few times a day rather than at random times.
| scottmcdot wrote:
| How do you do that? I would love the ability to "batch"
| notifications from certain apps. Eg every second hour they
| notify, if any notification is pending.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| On iOS:
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-
| us/HT201925#:~:text=Schedule%20....
| clnq wrote:
| For iOS - https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201925 On
| Android, I believe there are apps that will copy and dismiss
| your notifications, so you have a similar experience.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| On android there's an app called Buzzkill that can do it. I
| have my notifications batched during the workday and mute
| successive notifications from that one friend who chats with
| way too many linebreaks.
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samruston..
| ..
| Double_a_92 wrote:
| I straight up uninstall apps that send me unsolicitated
| notifications. "You haven't played this game in x days..." yeah
| you are right, time to uninstall it :)
| [deleted]
| haltist wrote:
| Sometimes I will be having a conversation with someone and then
| their phone will buzz or make some sound and the person's
| attention will shift entirely to the phone. I don't think people
| realize the effect these gadgets have on their cognition.
|
| I have a phone but it is always on silent. I've decided that it
| is not acceptable to remotely hijack my attention. No
| notification on my phone sent by some corporation is ever urgent
| and basically never requires my immediate attention.
| wallhack wrote:
| Yeah, and it's also incredibly rude. Like, we're having lunch
| together in person, and mid-sentence, they disappear into their
| phone for minutes at a time.
|
| I stop hanging out with these types of people. If online
| bullshit is more important than actual real life, what is even
| the point?
|
| I leave on notifications for calls and calendar events. That's
| it. Texts are silenced but appear on the lock screen.
| Everything else is a red dot only.
|
| My friends point out how weird this is. But when I see multiple
| stacks of unread notifications on their lock screens, it seems
| exhausting.
| swayvil wrote:
| Why is the phone always automatically higher priority than the
| guy you're talking to?
|
| Seems messed up. What's the psychology with that?
|
| Is it a FOMO thing? Should we feel insulted?
| haltist wrote:
| Good question. I have no idea why people allow their
| attentionto be hijacked by algorithms. My guess is they just
| don't realize what is happening.
| xyst wrote:
| The pandemic, years of Ivy League scholar manipulation via
| social media companies, and generally everything almost tied
| to your phone (banking, investments, work...).
|
| It's all stacked against you.
| mr_mitm wrote:
| That's why I believe phone calls should be considered intrusive
| these days. Unless it's an emergency or you're my mom, you
| should send a text. I'm not going to notice anyway unless I'm
| looking at my phone while you call.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Same happens with phone calls themselves. People on the other
| side seem to assume they take automatic precedence over
| whatever else you were doing.
| mock-possum wrote:
| This stuff is so hard for me to understand. I put actual time and
| effort into _avoiding_ those notifications - i try to give new
| apps a fair shake, but when spam notifications start to show, I
| slowly ratchet back notification privileges until eventually I
| just uninstall the app, especially if I've disabled notification
| permissions and it keeps begging me to re enable them.
|
| To me, this sounds like teens - people, really, because plenty of
| people 'somehow' wind up in this exact situation, where 'somehow'
| there's just too many notifications on their phone to keep up
| with, as if it's some sort of inexorable force of nature that
| it's futile to resist. It just comes off as such bullshit to my
| ears, it's nothing more than unwillingness to take responsibility
| for your own choices, and to put effort towards arranging your
| environment in a way that suits you.
|
| If your phone is doing things you don't want it to do, your
| response should _never_ be to just shrug and say "oh well I guess
| that's the way things are for me now."
|
| Given how many times I see that same situation expanded to
| encompass someone's entire approach to managing their life in
| general, I really shouldn't be surprised - I just cannot
| understand why taking control of that stuff and working to resist
| the things you don't want just does not seem to be a priority for
| so many people. They just let bad things happen to them. It's
| mind boggling.
|
| The fact that teens are struggling with this doesn't even seem
| significant to me. This attitude is everywhere regardless of age.
| alexashka wrote:
| Teens inundated with bullshit apps. Adults inundated with
| bullshit jobs. So it goes.
| noman-land wrote:
| One of the very important skills to learn in this era is
| purposeful curation of one's own attention.
|
| If you don't keep the avenues of interruptions into your daily
| life in check they will overwhelm you.
|
| Everyone everywhere wants you to look at their thing or listen to
| their thing every time they have a new thing. You have to
| aggressively pare down what gets through and when.
|
| Only the absolute most important things should be able to
| interrupt you. You can probably count those things on one hand.
|
| Calls from spammers are not on this list.
|
| Email newsletters are not on this list.
|
| Notifications of new comments on a post are not on this list.
|
| New articles on a publication you read are not on this list.
|
| At the end of the day, everyone's list is different.
|
| Turn off notifications on most things. Unsubscribe from most
| things. Push notifications off for most things. Persistent
| notification dots and numbers off. Sounds off.
|
| Take your attention back. It doesn't always come naturally to
| learn this skill but in 2023 deciding if, when, and where you
| will pay attention to something is paramount.
| drewg123 wrote:
| One of the things I hated about moving to iOS from Android is
| that the Garmin iOS app doesn't give you per-app controls over
| what notifications are pushed to the watch. At least on Android,
| I could easily control watch notifications per app, so that only
| "important" apps' notifications would buzz my watch. But on iOS,
| some random slack DM is going to wake me up on my days off..
|
| So if I want to sleep in, I need to remember to both put my phone
| in "sleep focus" and either change the Garmin notification hours,
| or just disable bluetooth.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| According to the media hysteria of any given moment, teens are
| always inundated with one new threat after another, and maybe
| they sometimes even really are, but they deserve a bit of credit
| for resilience, and in any case i'd call this one fairly mild in
| comparison to historical dangers.
|
| Compared to past worries like military conscription (often
| deadly), mass state propaganda, and the crazy political cultures
| of decades past, the threat today from phones to teenagers is
| pretty tame and even gives them easy access to real information
| and data so much better than the past allowed for hammering down
| nonsense ideas and dishonest, manipulative claims. These latter
| two things have always been thrown at kids, today they finally
| have immediately accessible tools for digging deeper like never
| in human history.
|
| Also, for when phones really do get tedious with an overload of
| corporate marketing and promotion garbage (Thanks so many of you
| high-paid BigTech/AdTech workers later commenting against online
| BigTech advertising right here on this very site!), you see, all
| modern devices have these little physical and digital buttons
| that let you set parameters to their behavior. Unbelievable as it
| seems, by pressing them in certain ways, it's possible to mute
| all sorts of notifications and prompts. My phone is right beside
| me all day, silent and discreet as an English butler unless I
| actively open it and seek sometimes, all because i set it to shut
| the fuck up with just a few moments of touch and clicking around.
| Any teen can usually do the same just as easily.
|
| I know that many on HN will blather on about "disinformation",
| teen self esteem through social media and so forth as modern
| phone-related risks. However, much of this too is exaggerated or
| describes dangers lighter than the youth isolation of the past,
| which kids before mass digital communication had far fewer
| avenues for escaping from through access to their own personal
| interests and circles online.
|
| If one thing truly is a danger to teens in modern phones and
| digital communications via social media spheres, its not so much
| too many notifications as it is the normalization of total
| 24-hour surveillance by faceless entities "serving your
| interests" and the inevitable data collection that makes young
| indiscretions now ever more literally unforgettable in the worst
| sense of the word.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Marketing people are trash, episode _someverylargenumber_
|
| You know where we need lots of marketing people? _Mars._ I think
| we should send them there first to build the consumer society
| that will be necessary for colonizing a new planet, perhaps in
| some sort of space Ark.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Just maybe keep the tefone cleaners.
| akomtu wrote:
| Big Tech is the modern quarry: our attention is the solid rocks
| that big tech breaks into small pieces, so it can steal those one
| by one and sell them to advertisers. In return it gives us
| useless plastic thinklets.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| A majority of these notifications are the teens communicating
| with their peers. That's how you get an absurd total like
| thousands a day.
|
| Much of their socializing has moved online. Parents have
| effectively encouraged this trend, despite complaining about
| phone time.
|
| People are far less willing to let their children just hang
| around the neighborhood, or walk to a friend's home these days,
| which forces communication through phone or desktop app instead.
| xyst wrote:
| > People are far less willing to let their children just hang
| around the neighborhood, or walk to a friend's home these days,
| which forces communication through phone or desktop app
| instead.
|
| In America, often "walking to a friend's home" is a 45-60
| minute walk. Crossing multiple busy streets and the sad excuse
| suburbanites call "boulevards". Suburban neighborhoods are
| often the worst as far as safety is concerned. Drivers don't
| give af about pedestrians. Sidewalks non-existent or abruptly
| end.
|
| Biking may reduce the travel time but still sharing those roads
| with highly irritable commuters finishing their 45-60 minute
| commute from hell. Bike infra in the suburbs? Paint up the
| road, add a sign indicating it's a "shared lane" and that
| passes as "bike infrastructure" in some of these neighborhoods.
|
| Unfortunately, this is not something new. It has been going on
| for decades. Want to know why the kid in the 90s-00s spent most
| of their time at home playing video games? That's because it
| was the only thing to do in a suburban setting.
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