The Notification Fixation
I’m all for “Smart” devices. I, much like many of you, have started filling my home with them, making convenience out of tasks that were … well, let’s face it, tasks that took no effort in the first place.
But that’s OK! Why get up to turn on a light switch all the way over by the room’s entrance, when a light sensor can notice it’s gotten dark, and turn the light on for you? It’s not really about cutting out the need to walk four steps to the light switch, is it? It’s about letting technology take care of the mundane, and leaving us to our tasks – or to our entertainment, uninterrupted.
I LOVE smart devices.
Devices that control your home’s heating via a thermostat, a GPS locator sent from your phone, or even from an app that affords you the opportunity to check and alter it’s controls remotely. These kinds of devices save energy and save time, even as they prevent discomfort and inconvenience.
But Smart Devices don’t stop there, do they? These Smart Devices that do their job and make life a little better are one thing, but we have also been force-fed this idea that everything should be connected. Everything needs to have everything on it.
Your TV has to have social media, your watch has to be able to tell you when an email arrives and, perhaps most irritating of all, your computer’s operating system has to automatically sign into everything for you, and throw notifications at you every few seconds because apparently, all of these things are now more important than anything else in your life could possibly be.
There is absolutely NO EARTHLY REASON why a Facebook notification should appear on my screen while I’m watching a movie on Netflix. Be it on my phone, tablet, computer OR Smart TV. There is NO REASON why my watch needs to buzz at me when my phone receives a message.
And there is no justification at all for watches that buzz on your wrist 2 seconds after you already heard your phone buzz, which was actually 1 second after your laptop “dinged” at you, all for the same message!
This entire “notification culture” is an absolute blight on society and is an unending, persistant, relentless assault on our sanity.
I know you can turn these things off – I DO turn these things off. I have no interest in having my life, my thought process, my current task, or my enjoyment of a TV show or a movie, being assaulted with beeps, buzzes and flashes from any device. I have all of that turned off on my PHONE, so I certainly won’t be using them on my watch, or my TV screen. But that doesn’t take care of the problem, does it?
You are likely reading this thinking that *I* am the weird one. The people all around me that allow their every waking moment to be governed by notifications – I’ll bet you think that’s absolutely normal. You’re one of them, aren’t you?
My phone is a tool that I use for convenience. As described in the opening paragraph, it’s a smart device that allows me to do stuff more easily, and even takes care of many tasks FOR me. What it doesn’t do, is provide a way for everyone in my life to constantly contact me, and expect an instant response.
But the way that the mobile phone’s original purpose has been somehow transmitted like a disease to every other device in our homes and on our bodies is beyond irritating. Even more irritating is the way that most people seem to accept it!
There have been many studies showing the relationship of social media and instant messaging to depression and dopamine addiction. If you ask me, we don’t even need these studies anymore. You can tell by looking at the general public that they are hooked on this bullshit. It’s not even about receiving messages INTENDED for you anymore. It’s the infinite scroll. The complete detachment from reality. The willing ESCAPE from reality into a fictional world of social media embellishments and exaggerations, only to wish that their own lives were as fun and interesting as the crap they’re reading.
Surely this is the biggest problem – People lie about their own lives on social media in order to compete with someone else’s lie. All of the time, both parties believing that the other’s lie is true! All of this, happening multiple times per day, every day of their lives. Of course this leads to depression. You need to get your head out of your phone for a while and enjoy something for what it is.
People don’t go to concerts to enjoy the show any more. They go in order to take a video or a selfie and show everyone on their social media platform of choice that they were there. It’s the same screwed up mentality of people that photograph their food and share the images online or – and this is a really annoying one I’ve noticed on the rise recently – people that take a photograph of the screen at the cinema when the movie title is displayed.
What the hell are you doing?
Can’t you enjoy a moment in your life without having to make it a digital boast?
More and more notifications from more and more apps flood our lives daily. There has to be a tipping point somewhere. The question is, will you fall over the edge and turn into a completely mindless drone, chasing the dopamine hit 24/7 … or will you turn the notifications off and redress the balance before insanity takes you?
MisterShouty 