Notifications Suck

I hate notifications with a passion.

Do you ever walk into a room and forget what you came in for? You probably got distracted by something else. Maybe a stray interesting thought, or maybe you saw something that reminded you of something else.

Well do you ever turn on your iPad and forget why you turned it on? You probably saw some red badge. And that badge got you sucked into a work email. Then before you know it you’re chewing over some big stressful thing. You may even try to hammer out a response.

Hell and that’s PRODUCTIVE! I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve tripped into social media arguments with people. Trump said what!?! Surely the commenters are as outraged as I am. Oh wait what did this idiot say. Surely I must respond to this wrong person on the Internet! My comment will resonate so loudly as to alter the course of human history.

Then you close the iPad. It’s an hour later. And you were going to read a book. Or learn something new. You got completely sidetracked by that thing you were going to do. The baby is now crying. Or it’s time to go somewhere. You lost an hour of internet-driven self discovery to distractions and arguing with wrong people in the Internet.

Repeat after me: Notifications are pointless interruptions! If you see the verb “notify” replace it with “distract” or “interrupt.” Really when you think about it, in the grand scheme of things you only care about being interrupted by a few really important things

1. The house is on fire
2. Someone important calls you (it takes real work for them to call you)
3. Maybe one or two people send you a text-based message (message from spouse)

That’s IT. However, some apps would have you be disrupted for items as trivial as

1. Someone you worked with 10 years ago has had a birthday
2. Somebody moved a trello card
3. There’s new flights to check out for that trip you were shopping for
4. A random person liked your thing (tweet/post/blog article) on the Internet (somehow we’ve been conditioned to have this be extremely important)
5. A random person posted a comment on a random forum I happen to have kept open in some tab

And while this information can sometimes be important, it’s not worth being interrupted for. It’s something you can check later, when you have time. You really don’t need to know when someone responds to you on Facebook. Knowing immediately that someone has retweeted you has almost no value to you.

Yet somehow we’ve bought into these notifications as having importance. Some tie into our work lives — important email I must respond too! Some tie into our sense of ego gratification: something valuable is happening now to you. “Did Rick Astley just retweet me? Holy crap! I’m important!” Others want to tie to the (rather stupid) idea that opportunity only knocks once. Some plane fare is cheap if I act in the next 20 minutes!? Others simply come along for the ride because, as we’ll discuss they’re desperately trying to get you to care about the app. Still many others simply think “notifications: why not?” (looking at you Discuss!).

Take an inventory of the notifications in your life. Are they *really* important? Even the important email can wait until tomorrow. If work is really on fire, someone should have your number — they CAN call you.

Point 2: Focus, not information, not responding quickly, FOCUS is your most precious resource.

Ok we get notifications distract. They interrupt. But sometimes they’re fun. It’s neat to see that someone enjoys what we’re saying. Or getting that cheap flight can also be fun. Why should we care about notifications?

Notifications damage our focus. They’re unhealthy. Why? Because they rob us of focus.

We already rob ourselves of focus when we check Facebook, Twitter, etc during a work day. Why drive the nail deeper by letting these apps have the ability to directly distract us? Its like trying to diet and constantly being shown a box of donuts. Want some donuts? They look good don’t they. Go on take just one!

Focus, not information, not the ability to react quickly, FOCUS is like gold. Its a rare resource. Its capital you can invest in something else. Focus means learning, solving problems, writing, producing. Only through focus and concentration do we grow.

If you can’t focus on learning anything, what’s the point in sitting in front of a device that holds the entire sum of human knowledge?

In fact, I’ve got a startup pitch for you. A totally notification (and distraction) proof tablet. Instead of the ability to switch between apps. Instead of being monitored and cajoled into certain behaviors, you take content you wish to learn and imprint it on a single-use screen. This screen cannot distract you. It’s physically impossible. It comes with a 100% concentration guarantee. There’s no icons, popups, badges, dancing bears, or anything! I’d pay real money for that!

Yeah no duh you’re saying, it’s called a book. It’s a subatomic particle of information in the vast ocean of knowledge available on the Internet. But it never takes away your focus. You’re never tempted to check twitter for retweets. You have a real chance of getting deep into the content. Of really focussing. You have no ability to accidentally find yourself in email or a chat room.

Sitting in front of an internet connected device to focus increasingly feels like futile dieting. It’s too tempting to get that little hit of dopamine. Apps sit too eager to notify you of some pointless affair that seems more fun than the mental exercise you sat down to do. Somebody liked your post or the silly joke you made on twitter! That’s a small bit of excitement that can fill you — just like eating that M&M. A small reward that builds up to larger pain.

I’m starting to wonder if, like obesity, ADD is the new disease of the affluent. Instead of that hard bit of mental exercise I end up hitting the reward lever, eating the mental equivalent of skittles for an hour.

Lately I’ve put the tablet away at bedtime. While I value it’s ability to explore every facet of human information, I often get far more than the 300 page linear algebra book at my bedside that I read (and really learn!) 2 pages at a time. Even with every notification turned off on my tablet, my concentration with a book deepens, my desire to find that little hit of dopamine removed. Just like dieting, environment control is key. You don’t regret not eating brownies when there’s no brownies around. If there’s nothing around but salad, fruit, and lean meats suddenly you eat well without a constant epic struggle of willpower.

If you want to experience this yourself, take a book on your next plane ride. (hurry before all airplanes have ubiquitous Internet too!) Suddenly your concentration comes back. Your ability to do hard mental work sinks in. You get a ton out of that book.

Protect your focus. It’s far too precious to waste.

Point 3: Notifications are a proxy for poor discovery and design

Notifications distract us, prompting us to make unhealthy choices with our attention. But why are they used for apps for even trivial things?

The reason many notifications exist to tell you stuff that perhaps the app sucks at telling you during normal usage. Spam exists because they need to get you back into the app. The app by itself isn’t sticky enough. It’s not leading you to the right places or the right content. GET BACK IN HERE PLEASE I HAVE THINGS TO SHOW YOU!1!1

If you’re creator of said app, and you think “I know I’ll send them a notification” please reconsider. Instead, think hard about your app:

• Is it interesting?
• Do you understand the value users want to get out of your app? Does that not line up with what you’re providing?
• Are you recommending the right content/products/etc to users?
• When readers search, do they find what they want? This is especially important, because users tell you in their own words what they think your app is

If I may pick on one candidate for this, it’d be LinkedIn. As a consultant, I use LinkedIn to connect professionally with a broad variety of folks. I want to enter the app and see if there’s any business opportunity for me. Secondarily, I want to see what others in my profession are sharing and discussing.

Recently LinkedIn updated their iOS app, and the following seem to be given equal weight as notifications:

• someone had a birthday (really on a professional site?)
• somebody posted a new post (ok that’s nice, but next)
• somebody wants to connect (meh WAIT I BARELY NOTICED IT)
• somebody switched jobs (ok that’s nice, but next)
• somebody has a work anniversary (what is this the 60s? did they get a watch?)
• somebody sent me a message about work (huh moving on, OH CRAP YES I WANT TO TALK TO YOU)
• somebody in a group posted some crap

In reality I *care* about two things in this list, in order of priority

1. Somebody sent me a message about work
2. Somebody wants to connect with me

LinkedIn lost what I am looking for in a sea of irrelevant information. They’ve probably noticed I’ve gone away and don’t use their app as much. So guess what the solution is: NOTIFY ME OF EVERYTHING IN THE ABOVE LIST.

What if instead of spamming me about people’s birthdays, interrupting my precious focus, and distracting me into a confusing app — what if they instead worked really really hard on the two things in my list above. How badass would that be?

Or to speak more broadly, what if LinkedIn focussed on the use case of pairing like minded folks with similar professional interests. This means

1. Helping matching me to like minded folks (probably through search and recommendations)
2. Creating a way for us to communicate and share information

Do that, then trim the fat. Really trim it. I bet I’ll be in your app more, instead of being driven to it by the possible dopamine hit on the other side.

Instead I’m lost. More importantly I’m annoyed. My focus is sapped. I can’t get work done. Even a little bit of overspill of pointless events annoys me and makes my spam-dar go off. Stop doing it.

Parting Question: Is it possible to Design for Flow, Not Distraction?

To me one of the biggest antidotes to the candy-counter of ego-gratifying notifications are video games. Video games work very differently than most apps. They focus on flow. They calibrate the tasks and challenges carefully as to not overwhelm you. A good game combines an important goal, challenging tasks, and a sense of accomplishment.

To me video games have become a refuge for the sea of interruptions we find ourselves in. They train our brains back to a healthy task flow. I have no data to back this up, but I believe after an hour of gameplay I am more focus and goal oriented with my work than before. After a day of answering emails, being interrupted, being badgered by my devices I am able to relax and play through the game. Get to the next level. Move the ball forward.

Why aren’t normal apps more like games? Why do we design to bother people rather than help them get work done?

Perhaps more importantly, why aren’t our operating systems designed this way? Video games take over the whole screen to get you to that state of flow. Why do I have all these Windows each with an equal opportunity to bother me? If I was a woodworker and my hammer started buzzing to tell me something while my screwdriver did backflips because it wanted to tell me about a screw that needed tightening? I’d never get anything done.

I think this is the main reasons tablets are popular. With my iPad I use iOS’s settings to turn the notifications down to zero (still they sneak in on new apps; or apps which decided to add notifications). I’ve added a keyword. I sit in full screen mode. While I still check twitter and do other distracting activities, the full screen task-focused ability to consume and create is amazing.

I think this is also why the command line remains popular for programmers. Its task oriented. One serial line of thinking. One task to move the ball on. No gizmos, popups, or distractions.

I’m terrified of our Internet of Things future, not because of security issues, but because I don’t want my screwdriver connected to twitter. Focus is inherently unconnected and serial. Its flow.

My hope is we’ll begin to take focus & flow more seriously than reacting and raw information.