Item — HN Reader

Yeah, I know this is an anecdote but most people in my life just put up with a constant stream of buzzing and pinging. I’m very much in the habit of not allowing any notifications to begin with, especially in my browser, but I’m in a minority I think.

Emails are even worse, I unsubscribe from the vast majority and block the ones I can’t (Hermes are utterly revolting for this noise generation, three non-unsubscribable emails and three texts per delivery!). The pathetic signal to noise ratio of email makes it utterly worthless as a means of communication for me, if it were up to me I’d do away with it altogether!

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I remember sitting at a restaurant some time pre-covid, and watching this young couple a few tables over with their phones on the table. Every 1-2 seconds or so, something dinged or buzzed, or the screen lit up. It was like Las Vegas on their phone. Beep beep beep ding ding flash. And like Pavlov's dogs, every time the phones lit up, they interrupted whatever they were doing (talking, eating, whatever), picked up their phones and started playing around with them. I would be an insane basket case after 30 minutes of this, but they somehow managed to get through an entire meal with essentially a casino light and sound show erupting on their phones. How do people's brains manage this without melting down?

For me? Mute + Do Not Disturb mode 24/7. No notifications, no texts, no phone calls, no sounds, period. I use my phone on my own terms, not when some app summons me. I can't imagine my brain surviving any other way.