The tiny red dots taking over our lives

[drdrey]

Here'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.

[jimmies]

I just don't install apps at all. I have a stock message app, a signal app, that's pretty much all I use for communication. No facebook, no instagram, no snapchat, no whatsapp, no slack, no bullshit. I'm sick and tired of having to find fucking "life hacks" and run through hoops to be not disturbed.

I started somewhat care less about notifications and emails and messages and whatnot. Unless people are in an urgency which I will reply, but normally I just reply whenever I am free. I'm not more productive, I just feel less attracted to the phone.

[cma]

It 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.

[ersh]

The first thing to do for any new app: go to settings and switch off all permissions.

[kerkeslager]

I don't have any notifications on the lock screen, period. And the things that get to alert on my top nav bar are few (emails and texts only).

[wycy]

This is basically what I do. I'll grant any app notification privilege, but the very first time it sends me something stupid, it gets notifications turned off completely. Unfortunately most apps hit this point quickly.

[dkarl]

I wish more people did this. There are apps that are designed to basically always have notifications, and people reward those apps by opening them ten times a day.

[amriksohata]

Agreed kilit before it kills you

[itronitron]

We 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]

This 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.

[exolymph]

There isn't that much of a liability, practically speaking.

[eqmvii]

Nothing 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.

[apotheothesomai]

What about Facebook notifying the user of a friend suggestion, as if it were a notification of a connection posting something?

[code_duck]

If 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.

[misun78]

Facebook 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]

>> "How do we prevent companies from such shoddy behavior?"

You uninstall their apps, pronto.

[King-Aaron]

Facebook 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.

[dingo_bat]

I 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.

[zwily]

On iOS at least, you can disable background activity. I’ve had Facebook’s disabled for years. I assume Android has something similar.

[gruez]

but apps on desktop can remain running as well, especially if they have a service/daemon that's separate from the ui.

[harlanji]

I’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.

[ilyanep]

A 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]

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.

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.

[milkmiruku]

If 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.

[drgoodvibe]

A 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.

[dredmorbius]

I'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.

[nathanaldensr]

Someone watched the Onyxia wipe video one too many times.

[itronitron]

no more dots