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The tiny red dots taking over our lives
- nathanaldensr 9y agoSomeone watched the Onyxia wipe video one too many times.
- itronitron 9y agono more dots
- neonate 9y agohttps://outline.com/jcEbYE https://outline.com/jcEbYE
- dredmorbius 9y agoI've been recommending Outline for people. I've changed my mind on this. Outline themselves have inserted a persistent, always-on-screen nag for their Chrome extension or app, which can not be disabled from Chrome/Android. I've written them on this. It's still present. I'll be firewalling that site as well, and using Firefox Reader Mode (or Archive.is where access is an issue) instead.
- neonate 9y agoI was posting archive.is before and switched because those are slower to load. Maybe I'll go back to that.
- drdrey 9y agoHere's a healthy habit: whenever an app abuses notifications, revoke its permissions to grab your attention. At a minimum, disable notifications on the lockscreen. Consider disabling banner alerts if they are too disruptive or distracting. Hide the app in a folder in a faraway screen to avoid being trapped by the little red dot badge.
- ersh 9y agoThe first thing to do for any new app: go to settings and switch off all permissions.
- JeremyBanks 9y agoBut then you lose the benefit from the apps that don't abuse them, defeating the purpose of the above post's suggestion.
- ilyanep 9y agoI'm not the person you're replying to, but I'd rather make the active decision that I want notifications from an app than passively deciding an app is allowed to until it annoys me.
- cma 9y agoIt isn't notifications, but.. Google has now updated Chrome on Android to constantly spam news stories at you every time you open a tab ("Stories for you"). You can't turn it off through any UI accessible to normal users.
- jimmies 9y agoThen don't use Chrome. Disable it. Use Firefox focus.
- itronitron 9y agoWe need to get back to the time when it was possible to run software (apps) without needing to create an account. It just blows my mind that companies want to take on the liability of managing so much personal information.
- z0r 9y agoThis is a great point, but recent large leaks (thinking of Equifax and Anthem, but there are probably other comparable leaks) show that the liability involved isn't meaningful.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Silhouette 9y agoThat problem is a big part of why the EU is bringing in the GDPR. The potential fines for infringement will be much more severe once those rules come into effect in a couple of months.
- exolymph 9y agoThere isn't that much of a liability, practically speaking.
- drgoodvibe 9y agoA long time ago blackberry had this is in spades with its red flashing LED. Pavlov’s dogs response to it.. well before the red dot was invented.
- ilyanep 9y agoA while ago I went from default allowing new apps to do notifications and badges to default not allowing them (with fewer apps being allowed to display badges than notifications) and now looking at my home screen is a much less stressful experience. Actually, this is a great reminder to go audit my current settings again...
- dingaling 9y agoPerhaps I'm contrarian or just have well-behaved apps but I actually prefer notification-driven interaction with my phone. I try to open it only if there is a notification. Otherwise I find myself aimlessly browsing without purpose. See alert, respond to alert, lock phone again. That's the 'tool usage' that helps me minimise time-loss. The same pattern as we used for dumbphones where the only on-device distraction was a game of Snake.
- mcphage 9y ago> Perhaps I'm contrarian or just have well-behaved apps but I actually prefer notification-driven interaction with my phone. I try to open it only if there is a notification. You must have well-behaved apps. Many apps are very aggressive about notifications; instead of using them for "this is something important you'll care about", many apps have started using them as "this is something you won't care about but we want you to open up our app anyways".
- eqmvii 9y agoNothing is worse than websites and apps deciding to invent notifications either on a regular basis, or because I haven't visited recently. Twitter and LinkedIn are especially guilty. A "notification" about friends of friends of followers having liked something trivial.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- apotheothesomai 9y agoWhat about Facebook notifying the user of a friend suggestion, as if it were a notification of a connection posting something?
- code_duck 9y agoIf you don’t have enough activity to fill your notifications with interesting or remotely interesting things, Facebook will notify you about items like that, too.
- milkmiruku 9y agoIf anyone can find a link on the project that appeared on /. or k5 roughly 20 years ago about a 1bit red dot communication program that sat in the systray that had a report on emergent behaviours between 2 folk at either end, I'd be ever so grateful.
- misun78 9y agoFacebook is downright unethical in how it shows a notification on Messages “from a given friend X” when the notification is instead by Facebook, on behalf of friend X (birthday etc). How do we prevent companies from such shoddy behavior?
- avn2109 9y ago>> "How do we prevent companies from such shoddy behavior?" You uninstall their apps, pronto.
- sneak 9y ago* and delete your account, lest your friends continue to attempt to message you on a messenger you don’t have installed.
- King-Aaron 9y agoFacebook is the worst. Every couple of hours I'll look at my phone to see there's a dozen new notifications there, none of which have anything to do with content that I am involved in. Posts on groups I was automatically added to, events coming up I show no interest in, etc. Maybe once or twice a day there's a notification regarding something I've posted.
- mcphage 9y agoFacebook is bad, Twitter is way worse. "<your friend> liked a tweet from <someone you don't even know>". "In case you missed out on <friend>'s tweet". "<your friend> like a tweet from <another friend of yours>". "Recent tweet from <friend>". "<friend> liked your Retweet." "Highlights from <friend> and 10 others." I figure it's only another few years before every tweet shows up as a notification...
- dingo_bat 9y agoI want my phone to work more like my PC, where an app that is closed is actually dead. None of this background bullshit. I need Facebook uber etc to run only when I'm using them. The rest of the time they should be completely off.
- harlanji 9y agoI’ve revoked all badge permissions; literally all, even text and vm... I usually just reply to notifs when I can and leave the ringer on if I am expecting anything. Interestingly I get frequent notifs from Settings about Apple Pay and more iCloud storage, enough to move it to its own page. They’re ads in my book, which is tacky for a brand I perceived as luxury and trustworthy until the iOS11 upgrade that included this spam. Highly recommended. Now that we’ve reached peak mobile we can treat them as tools rather than entertainment, Product Managers may follow soon.