The one change that worked: I set my phone to ‘do not disturb’ three years ago – and have never looked back
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imagine being the emergency contact for loved ones and responsible for small children and elderly, and just ghosting them in a clutch because you cant be bothered to configure your notification settings. fuck your life.
Call 911 ffs, I can't do anything.
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Please don't tell anyone I know about this feature.
Here's how my next family gathering would go if I were in the movie Liar Liar:
"Son! We never hear from you anymore! It's so hard to get ahold of you these days!"
"Yeaaaaah........"
"Everytime I call, there's never any answer, and your mailbox is full."
"Yeah. I've intentionally kept my voicemailbox full for the past 3 years. Then I turn the ringer to silent, as it has been for 10 years"
"Why?"
"Well, I love all of you, but it is EXAUSTING to talk to most of you for more than 30 minutes, and not very often. If you notice, at Christmas, and other holidays, I tend to flutter. I don't want to spend any more than 15 minutes with any one of you, so when you start building up your bs, I flutter to the next person, and the cycle renews. Look, I know my niece is only 13, but she better start dating by 15, and have a kid by 18. Look, BEST case scenario, I don't get to play retro video games with a kid seeing them for the first time for AT LEAST 8-9 years. And that's assuming my niece grows up waaaaaaay faster than I expect her to. She may not have a kid until she's 30! I'm not going to be the cool uncle in his late 40s, spending time with the kid, so he feels included.......I would be the weird uncle in his late 60s, trying to show his great nephew novelty video games from 80 years prior. And at that point I lose my buffer! Ok, I'm sorry. I would absolutely prefer to play video games with a kid I talk to once a year, and show him games of the past, than have to go have "grown up conversations". Which roughly translated means hearing my boomer mom get progressively more openly racist, which historically was NEVER the case, and my boomer dad become increasively more peaceful, and accepting of others, and less racist......which is even MORE surprising! Because before Obama, he would not hesitate to throw the n-word around casually. So basically I don't understand life right now. Then you got my sister, who I feel I should feel guilty for thinking she's a bad person....but I don't. She belittles anyone, even those close to her. She loves to argue and make those around her feel bad. Then there's my other sister who used to be this social animal party drinker when she was in her 20s, and now in her 50s she loves judging people, and gossiping about the neighbors or whoever. Again, historically unlike her. Then there's my brother in law, who I feel like is the reason my sister turned from free spirit to mean judgy type. And then there's his parents, who aren't bad people at all. His parents are salt of the earth people. They're just really really......boring in every way. Finally there's my niece. She's 13, so she's in that self awkward phase where she doesn't talk to anyone and somehow gets away with it. Maaaaaan, just a few years ago she was my buffer! I played untitled goose game with her, pokemon with her, some driving game.......now she stays in her room and avoids everybody! Lucky...."
And then everybody would look at me and stare. Everybodys feelings are hurt. So instead I just say
"Heh, yeah. I get a lot of telemarketers these days"
I swear to god, their dog better live like 30 years. She LOVES me everytime I come over. And she gets super excited and energetic. So I'm just like "I'll Maisey for a walk!" And my sister is like "It's 10 degrees, and blizzarding out there!" And I'm like "So does she have little doggy boots, and maybe like a sweater with overlaying wind breaker....orrrrr......what are we doing? Is this like a pulling her on a sled situation?" And she'd say "No there's no doggy boots or sweaters, or sleds!" And I say "Well, I mean that's kind of cruel though, don't you think? To take her out in this without protection from the elements?" And she says "I WASN'T GOING TO TAKE HER OUT AT ALL!!!" and I just say "Woooowwwwwwww! Hear that Maisey? I'm the only one who loves you enough to take you for a walk. C'mon, we get the old wagon, and at the very least a blacket!"
And then leave the house for like.....45 minutes to an hour.
Look, I love my family. I just don't have the social stamina to interact with them.
Thanks for sharing, it really did feel like a sketch out of the movie.
I guess I would also focus on the dog and the niece when they are more approachable and not as combative and so many people in your family are changing quite profoundly
I hope you have a lovely day without phone calls!
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True, one of the first thing I did on my phone, set to DnD from 22h to 7h,except for phone calls and SMS from known contacts.
I changed mine to all calls after a friend called 2am from a cell and I didn't get it. Still only certain texts though
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Am I the only one that just ignores calls and texts that I don't want to respond to immediately or ever? I never have my ring volume up and I've muted almost all of my group chats, so only individual messages get through. My Pixel also does call screening which blocks a lot of trash from getting to me, and I keep space in my VM for when I have important calls get through that I either can't or don't want to answer.
You have a GOOGLE phone?!?! Does it notify ICE when you’re near an immigrant? JK
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I can't emphasize how important it is for you to control your phone, especially notifications. Every notification is literally a mind hijacking attempt. Regardless of the type of notification, it's something that disrupts our thinking and our flow.
Some of them are necessary—but most aren't.
All the native apps will of course try to get as much permission from you as possible, including notifications. Don't allow this permission freely.
Get really strict about which apps need to send you notifications, and when. Take it from a dude who used to give free reign to all apps for notifications.
Once I started thinking in a more digitally minimalistic way, it made a huge difference. Running GrapheneOS actually helped with this a lot. But you don't need GOS to do this and feel the difference.
I got some notifications turned on, but most of em are silent. So they still get delivered, but they're not time-sensitive. They'll be there when I check my phone next. I don't need em interrupting whatever I was doing or thinking.
TL;DR: Be strict about which notifications you allow, and when. It'll do wonders for your thinking, productivity, and mental health.
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This should be the default on new phones. I enabled it the first time I got a call at 3AM from one of my clients. Many people just have no respect.
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You have a GOOGLE phone?!?! Does it notify ICE when you’re near an immigrant? JK
Google hardware is actually solid. Just don't run Google software.
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I do this to my mom as a way to be very low-contact with her. It's a huge relief.
I used to love texting when it was only a handful of friends but these days I hate the pressure of it being ever-present in my pocket and the social expectation to answer in a relatively timely manner. (This has led me to being a horrible texter, sorry everyone.)
I miss the old days of AOL instant messenger. Your online status did all the heavy lifting to communicate when you had some free time and felt like chatting.
Your online status did all the heavy lifting to communicate when you had some free time and felt like chatting.
A lot of modern messengers implement a similar feature but I disable them or manually set it to "away" perpetually. Using DND makes much more sense. I just tell people they can message me literally any time they want but I will not see or respond to them until later.
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Your online status did all the heavy lifting to communicate when you had some free time and felt like chatting.
A lot of modern messengers implement a similar feature but I disable them or manually set it to "away" perpetually. Using DND makes much more sense. I just tell people they can message me literally any time they want but I will not see or respond to them until later.
Very different these days. The beauty of the status bubbles and messengers of past is that you would catch each other when you both had time and desire to chat and then you'd have a back and forth conversation until one of you disengaged. You also almost never have people sending offline messages. It was more akin to an in-person interaction where you're either visibly there and someone can approach and talk to you in real time or you aren't.
Texting is generally of a blend between real-time messenging (but you can't tell if they're available) and short form email where everyone interacts differently and has their own ideas about "proper" etiquette. It's probably somewhat cultural but in my experience, people just use messaging apps in the exact same way as they would text, so status bubbles don't mean much.
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I’m probably a nightmare to get hold of at a moment’s notice – and should never, ever be someone’s In Case of Emergency, much to my partner’s chagrin.
Any phone will allow you to still receive notifications for a select contacts or numbers that call repeatedly with DND on so that's something she's chosen which I would be offended by if I was her partner, especially considering they have two young children.
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I’m probably a nightmare to get hold of at a moment’s notice – and should never, ever be someone’s In Case of Emergency, much to my partner’s chagrin.
Any phone will allow you to still receive notifications for a select contacts or numbers that call repeatedly with DND on so that's something she's chosen which I would be offended by if I was her partner, especially considering they have two young children.
Most allow you to also nominate VIP contacts that always get through, he should dump her
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iOS also has a nice feature where if you get called by the same number twice in a short period of time it will let the second call through.
The pessimist in me knows it’s just a matter of time until robo callers figure that one out and start double calling, but it is nice peace of mind for now.
A lot of them already do call twice in a row, thanks apple.
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I love scheduled and automation based DND, except that about twice per year, SOMETHING SOMEWHERE updates and causes my alarm to be silenced by DND, despite having my clock app exempted from every possible silencing mechanism I can find.
For the life of me, I can't understand why that would ever be a useful behavior, let along default one.
Lucky for me, I have a pretty robust internal clock, but Holy Fuck is that annoying.
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Am I the only one that just ignores calls and texts that I don't want to respond to immediately or ever? I never have my ring volume up and I've muted almost all of my group chats, so only individual messages get through. My Pixel also does call screening which blocks a lot of trash from getting to me, and I keep space in my VM for when I have important calls get through that I either can't or don't want to answer.
Yes, me too. My phone is always silent and with Do Not Disturb on. Only few family contacts can get through, and only with a phone call.
I don't even know what's the sound of the notifications of my phone. It's blissful.
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Am I the only one that just ignores calls and texts that I don't want to respond to immediately or ever? I never have my ring volume up and I've muted almost all of my group chats, so only individual messages get through. My Pixel also does call screening which blocks a lot of trash from getting to me, and I keep space in my VM for when I have important calls get through that I either can't or don't want to answer.
Ignoring a text that "I can answer later" is actually what hits me with most cognitive charge :
My current balance is :
- To never give notification permission except when it is necessary for the core goal of the application.
- Automatically enable do not disturb from 11pm until alarm clock.
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I just turned off notifications for everything, except Signal and banking apps. Most convenient solution IMO.
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I appreciate that Android changed from an opt-out to an opt-in model when it comes to notification permissions, but it's still not enough.
I can't believe the mobile OS world became so much worse than actual computing. What a corporate hell scape. -
I appreciate that Android changed from an opt-out to an opt-in model when it comes to notification permissions, but it's still not enough.
I can't believe the mobile OS world became so much worse than actual computing. What a corporate hell scape.Tbh not surprised. In 2012 I got my first smartphone, it ran Android. At first I thought it was just like a PC. Within half an hour I was fed up at how useless it was.
Can't even open a terminal window and apt install apache, what a load of junk.
Tried a pinephone and that is almost perfect but it struggled with SMS. If that was more reliable I think it would be the perfect phone.
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All my phones have always been on DnD, I don't even know how my ringtone sounds.
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I've had mine on vibrate for years. Texting doesn't trigger it, only calls. It's been great.
I look at my phone only when I'm ready to look at it.
