Member-only story
15 Years Without Phone Notifications — Here’s How I Survived
A story of technological endurance
If you were in high school in the late 2000s, you most likely used MSN at some point in your teenage life. Whether it was to chat with the girl you had a crush on, have a group conversation with your buddies, or even just leave the camera and mic on and spend your evening online together, MSN was the place to be after school.
My favorite part about MSN though, was not the friends, the chatter, or updating my profile with a deep quote about love, hoping my crush would notice it. It was that I made a conscious choice to be there. I never worked or did anything creative while chatting on MSN. When I logged on, it was with the intention to chat, to be disturbed by notifications, or by some annoying friend sending me a “Wizz” that made my whole screen shake (remember those?).
I liked that MSN was intentional. When I was done with MSN, I would close down my laptop (actually sorry, I would turn off my parents’ PC which sounded like a fridge), and go do something else. I was done with the interruptions, and even if I was coming back to it 2 hours later, at least I fully disconnected for those 2 hours. Nowadays, this never happens with Messenger, Whatsapp, or even emails. It’s a constant, uninterrupted, and interrupting stream of information.
