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> No interruptions from IMs, SMS, Facebook, Linked In, Slack, GCN, Ring, Nest, Apple+, Farmville, Solitaire, or any other application that thinks it must get a

> No interruptions from IMs, SMS, Facebook, Linked In, Slack, GCN, Ring, Nest, Apple+, Farmville, Solitaire, or any other application that thinks it must get a hold of your attention Unwanted notifications are not a vice like snacking or the like where obviously you get some endorphins every time you do it and therefore you can get addicted, and thus it makes sense to "restrict access to sources of food" when you are trying to avoid it (e.g. self-control issues). No. _Unwanted_ notifications is something that is by definition not possible to get addicted to, so I really don't get this point of view. Just turn them off, dammit. Like you can in any operating system ever designed (so far) and then they are off. There's no need to go around fishing for a device which has no support for notifications. But I've seen a shitton of people saying they prefer this "dumbed down" device or the like for precisely this reason, which is absurd. Battery life, I get. Less maintenance, I might get. But "avoiding notifications", I don't get. I have a cheap no-name Android device as bed-side alarm clock since they are actually _cheaper_ than (off-shelf) bed-side alarm clocks and I can write my own alarm clock program for them (a big plus). I put it on Don't disturb mode the day I booted it for the first time. Never got a notification. Never woke me up in the middle of the night (unwantedly ;P ).

Mirioron 6y ago
Turning stuff off isn't easy when there are so many different sources for them. I want to have important notifications that I write down myself, but turning off all the other notifications has broken that for me. I get a 50-50 whether a given notification that I wrote myself will actually work for me. And all because I tried turning off notifications for things that I don't ever want to see a notification from.
Damogran6 6y ago
I’m not stupid. It’s the gamification of attention I’m done with. The iPod predates that, it returns control to me without ads between curated song lists, “app wants to send you notifications”, you could get premium for just $2 a month! You can absolutely turn it all off. But with the iPod, I didn’t have to.
- AshamedCaptain 6y ago
  Actually, you have to turn those _on_, usually. Its not that by default it will start spamming you about programs you did not install on in the first place.
surfpel 6y ago
> Unwanted notifications are not a vice like snacking or the like where obviously you get some endorphins every time you do it and therefore you can get addicted Except they’re not unwanted, at least not completely. Sometimes apps don’t let you decide what you’ll get sent, so that you get a mix of wanted and unwanted notifications. Other times one just can’t resist looking at them. You can argue as to what brain chemistry causes this to resemble an addiction, but you can’t argue that they have an addictive, attention hogging effect for many. > Just turn them off, dammit. The ease by which this is reversible and the habit of checking apps is the problem with this solution. > self-control issues This is such an unrealistic expectation. This is always the go-to argument as well - pinning the blame on the user. Thousands of engineers design these apps to be addictive. Most people aren’t going to win against that. Furthermore, few other things in life are designed to do hog attention like these apps are. They can only be compared to slot machines which clearly have a strong effect on people.
- AshamedCaptain 6y ago
  > Except they’re not unwanted, at least not completely. I explicitly called them "Unwanted" because the post I'm replying to mentions getting a plain old iPod (with no notifications whatsoever) as an alternative. If you _want_ these notifications, then my argument does not apply.
  - surfpel 6y ago
    > If you _want_ these notifications, then my argument does not apply. Then your argument has a very minimal reach and doesn’t apply to the post you replied to. Few apps have irrelevant and useless notifications. They usually have some relevance or use. Many apps, especially social media, play on reward centers to form addictive behavior. They are wanted in the sense that they are irresistible and are sometimes useful. The realization that they are troublesome makes them unwanted while still being irresistible.
    - AshamedCaptain 6y ago
      In which way it does not apply to the post I replied to? In which way would using a plain iPod -which now filters out all notifications, including the ones you actually want to receive- help if you have wanted notifications? That's the idiotic part. There is no "wanted" notification in this context. The poster just generically finds all notifications useless. If you are an addict to Facebook, I could understand buying a phone-network-capable device without the ability to install Facebook (the iPod isn't), or a child phone, or using parental controls on yourself (seen it); to enhance your self-control while still allowing access to work/family/whatever notifications. However, if you just don't want to receive notifications whatsoever, what's the point? There's no addiction here. You are talking about a different topic entirely.

Mirioron 6y ago

Turning stuff off isn't easy when there are so many different sources for them. I want to have important notifications that I write down myself, but turning off all the other notifications has broken that for me. I get a 50-50 whether a given notification that I wrote myself will actually work for me. And all because I tried turning off notifications for things that I don't ever want to see a notification from.

Damogran6 6y ago

I’m not stupid. It’s the gamification of attention I’m done with. The iPod predates that, it returns control to me without ads between curated song lists, “app wants to send you notifications”, you could get premium for just $2 a month! You can absolutely turn it all off. But with the iPod, I didn’t have to.

AshamedCaptain 6y ago
Actually, you have to turn those _on_, usually. Its not that by default it will start spamming you about programs you did not install on in the first place.

surfpel 6y ago

> Unwanted notifications are not a vice like snacking or the like where obviously you get some endorphins every time you do it and therefore you can get addicted Except they’re not unwanted, at least not completely. Sometimes apps don’t let you decide what you’ll get sent, so that you get a mix of wanted and unwanted notifications. Other times one just can’t resist looking at them. You can argue as to what brain chemistry causes this to resemble an addiction, but you can’t argue that they have an addictive, attention hogging effect for many. > Just turn them off, dammit. The ease by which this is reversible and the habit of checking apps is the problem with this solution. > self-control issues This is such an unrealistic expectation. This is always the go-to argument as well - pinning the blame on the user. Thousands of engineers design these apps to be addictive. Most people aren’t going to win against that. Furthermore, few other things in life are designed to do hog attention like these apps are. They can only be compared to slot machines which clearly have a strong effect on people.

AshamedCaptain 6y ago
> Except they’re not unwanted, at least not completely. I explicitly called them "Unwanted" because the post I'm replying to mentions getting a plain old iPod (with no notifications whatsoever) as an alternative. If you _want_ these notifications, then my argument does not apply.
- surfpel 6y ago
  > If you _want_ these notifications, then my argument does not apply. Then your argument has a very minimal reach and doesn’t apply to the post you replied to. Few apps have irrelevant and useless notifications. They usually have some relevance or use. Many apps, especially social media, play on reward centers to form addictive behavior. They are wanted in the sense that they are irresistible and are sometimes useful. The realization that they are troublesome makes them unwanted while still being irresistible.
  - AshamedCaptain 6y ago
    In which way it does not apply to the post I replied to? In which way would using a plain iPod -which now filters out all notifications, including the ones you actually want to receive- help if you have wanted notifications? That's the idiotic part. There is no "wanted" notification in this context. The poster just generically finds all notifications useless. If you are an addict to Facebook, I could understand buying a phone-network-capable device without the ability to install Facebook (the iPod isn't), or a child phone, or using parental controls on yourself (seen it); to enhance your self-control while still allowing access to work/family/whatever notifications. However, if you just don't want to receive notifications whatsoever, what's the point? There's no addiction here. You are talking about a different topic entirely.