Technology

My second proposal — and this is a wild one — is that promotional notifications should just not be allowed. Or you can opt in to them if you desperately want to hear from the Starbucks app every single day, but you should have to go out of your way to do that and should not be the default behavior when you choose “allow notifications.” Just an idea!

The author calls out the Starbucks app here, but doesn't mention how blatantly dark-patterned its notifications really are. Android allows apps to set up multiple notification channels, so you can selectively prioritize (or, more often, mute or block) notifications based on their content. Starbucks uses this feature... to create a single channel called "Promotions & order status". You wanted to know when your order's ready? Fuck you and your concentration, get double stars today!

I appreciate the notification controls Android gives me, and I use them aggressively. If an app pushes a notification that doesn't actually require my attention, I block that channel, and if it does it again, I block notifications for the whole app. I agree with the author, though: I shouldn't need to do that.

I have a simple rule. If I install an app and it shows me any notification I don't want to see, I immediately block it from having permission to do that.

For me, apps do not get to notify me unless it’s time sensitive.

The problem is when my food delivery app, or LinkedIn sends me ads when I just want messages.

It’s annoying to not be able to only receive messages.

Both on Android, and iOS, opting out of notifications solves most of the problems. You can do all on your own time without constant nagging, and leave notifications on for the communication channels you really need.

However, what I hate with passion are shopping and delivery apps that suffer with disabled notifications (I don’t know when things arrive, and that would ideally be good to know within seconds), but enabled notifications mean that there would be a lot of spam notifications about ordering and buying more.

If something's going to try to grab my attention, it had better be worth my while. I block as many notifications as I can, both on my phone and my computer. I also try to avoid using apps for things unless I have to.

On android long press a notification and it'll show you which category of notification it is from that app, with the ability to disable just that one category if desired. E.g. advertisements and feedback reminders

On Android you need to opt in to notifications for every app you install. Just opt out :)

Or, be like me and keep your phone on do not disturb(except calls from contacts). Doing this was one of the most significant quality of life improvements for me over the last few years.

If you're on IOS, the Focus feature is great. I use it primarily for sleep to turn off all notifications except for calls (in case of emergencies). But you can basically configure multiple profiles with different notification settings. Also, whenever I install a new app on my phone, I turn notifications off unless it's a time sensitive app like a messaging app.

Notification controls on android are pretty great in my experience.

Most apps (good ones anyway) breakdown different types of notifications, and you can turn off the ones you don't want. And if they don't, you can just turn off all notifications for that app entirely.

It all works pretty well.

My rule has always been people can notify me, but bots/apps cannot. If I see a notification not from a person, it gets disabled. If it's something I can practically do on a website, I don't download the app.

I don't really have any issues with it. Samsung has very fine-grained controls and most apps I simply don't grant notification permissions at all. Also I put every single chat group in Whatsapp, Telegram etc on Mute by default which helps a lot against overload.

By the way, I give it a year or so by when phones can run a local AI to automatically filter the notifications you're interested in.

Install app. Start app. "Allow notifications?" No.

Does iOS not do this?

Apps that I do allow notifications: when they become annoying I go to the notification, long hold > settings > notification categories. If they only have one category and don't let me fine tune then I don't need that app or just don't need notifications from it. Back to settings I have other ways to customize that can make them less annoying like silence them.

BuzzKill is great for wrangling your notifications. Match a word or phrase and group them, snooze them, set special vibration patterns, whatever.

I turned off all notifications for every app except Signal

You guys still check notifications? I have Infinite Scroll of notifications I never care enough about to spend time on doing anything about.

Just turn them off? That's what I do, my phone never annoys me.

For Android users Buzzkill is also great for apps that don't have granular enough notification settings. You can set up rules to make it automatically dismiss the notifications you don't want to see.

I realized at somepoint I was ignoring everything on my phone because of the number of notifications. Now I disable EVERYTHING and only leave important stuff. I wish this was the default.

The Amazon app, which for many years has faithfully executed its legitimate role as an app that helps me order stuff and track those orders, recently sent me a notification to let me know it thinks I might like some JBL headphones.

It made me furious. How dare they?

How do people struggle with notifications? This is even weirder than the ad-blocking thing, because at least you are required to find and install a third party app to solve that. Every app ever has notification settings built-in. Just take 20 seconds out of your day to setup the app correctly when you first install it and you will likely never have to worry about it again.