Modern Life: The Endless Stream of "Notifications"
So, Mrs. Denmarkguy wanted to know whether I had logged into one of her online events relating to her Poshmark store... the answer to which was "no"... and it occurred to me that I hadn't received any kind of notification about it.
Of course, that was partially my own fault because I typically avoid the eternal requests from websites to "notify" me of updates...
These days, we seem to be bombarded with requests to be sent notifications and updates... and often these seem to apply to almost anything, no matter how mundane. "Our store manager took a piss!"
I'm sure there are those who think it's amazing to get a never ending stream of updates. However, I do find myself pondering what my phone would even sound like if I actually agreed to all those requests!
It's terrifying!
Granted, I have never felt genetically attached to my phone the way some people do... it was hard enough for me to just get used to people calling me anywhere, at any time. There's just something vaguely invasive about needing to feel updated about 100s of organizations' every move...
Even as I write these words, earlier I actually forgot my phone at our vendor booth at the event we're taking part in this weekend. So what? It'll be there tomorrow morning when we set up for the day.
But let's get back to notifications and updates.
Maybe I'm just cynical, but sometimes it seems like individuals, companies and organizations "update" stuff purely for the sake of updating, and those updates actually have no tangible consequence.
Which brings us back to the heart of why I always say NO to whether I will allow notifications. It's the sheer frequency of updates/notifications that make me unsubscribe.
No, More is not better. More is actually annoying. It's just a contribution of noise to the information stream, and I'm super happy to be without it!
In some people's eyes, that probably makes me a "bad consumer." And I'm OK with that!
I'm just not willing to dedicate that much of my "personal bandwidth" to what is — ultimately — thinly (or not so thinly) disguised marketing.
Your stuff is just not that important!
Perhaps part of my issue here is that most "notifications" are not very customizable. You can't just agree to be notified only for the select few items you're interested in. And so, I'd rather look at nothing, than have to wade my way through everything.
And with the holidays right around the corner? I'm actually kind of happy to not be inundated with electronic "noise," in the form of updates.
Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!
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Created at 2023-12-01 22:08PST
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I've hated the metaphorical noise of updates, notifications, and newsletters almost since I started using e-mail seriously instead of as a novelty. So much useless clutter that exists only for me to manually delete, create an automated curation algorithm, unsubscribe, or just ignore as my inbox bloats. Like social media, corporate marketeering wankery has killed the joy of something I once thought was innocent and useful.
For me, it is definitely one of the most annoying things about being online, and using email. And it seems like no sooner have you come up with a set of filters that are working than they change the way they address and send stuff so it goes through anyway.
But, at the same time, there's stuff I do need to see. Like notifications from a credit card company, or from my bank. So I can't just turn the whole thing off completely.
I have most of the notifications off on my phone, except the actual phone ring/sms and two communicators. I hate to be constantly pinged and I just get distracted with it. If I want to check something I go and check :)
I just like it equally on my phone and on my desktop machine. I get notifications on my computer as well, and they irritatingly sit in the bottom right corner where I often have to click when I'm doing updates on web pages and blogs.
On laptop I have everything off :D Only Avast pops up sometimes.
I have to agree, notifications although should be a blessing, often turn out to be a hindrance, and more oft than not I ignore all notifications, meaning I miss those important ones I need.
One good thing about Sloth.Buzz is we're able to customise the notifications we receive, meaning we only need to focus on the important ones, like sloths dropping comments on your awesome content. Check out the settings under the notifications tab.
One of the reasons I find Discord relatively useless is the fact that you can either be subscribed to the servers you're part of, or not. If I am subscribed, I get an endless stream of notifications, but if I don't subscribe I'm basically never check it out. That feels an awful lot like a lose-lose situation to me.
I have to confess that I have not really explored sloth.buzz very much since you moved it to ecency but I guess I'm overdue for another visit, and a bit of further exploration!
Discord can be useful, the mute button for certain chats/rooms/categories is super important, you have to customise your experience to make the most of it. (I can help you close in on what you'd like there so you only get the notifications you want).
Yeah, the sloth.buzz site is currently still pretty much the Ecency base, dev is super close to adding our slothly spin, however, that is just the beginning. We've lots of ideas to implement, it'll take some time. Sloth speed ahead!
I agree with you on this! The constant streams of notifications is overwhelming and unnecessary. Social media is about connecting, not consuming. Thanks for sharing.
It increasingly seems to me like everything in the world has become more about consuming than about connecting. And I'm basically not much of a consumer so invitations to consume disguised as invitations to connect are just really annoying!
Wao! But you should connect.