Notifications' Hell

Once considered the greatest thing since sliced bread, notifications have spun of of control. Meant to be the (most) important stuff, have been sliding into complete irrelevance. And have become totally distracting and annoying. The operating systems (including the flagship Android and iOS), even with their recent Artificial Intelligence (AI) features have failed to cope with the notifications' torrents.

Out of box, every app wants to send notifications about everything - this is of course the fight for potential revenue through engagement and conversion. Yes this can be managed. But only theoretically, as users really drown in the ocean of options they do not understand. On top of the notifications' options there is the hierarchy - you have favorite contacts (meant to always go through), you have time - or activity - based profiles (iOS calls them focuses). Barely anyone understands the combinations.

Then there are the super annoying users of (increasingly more popular) instant messaging applications. SMS (text) messages are long gone, replaced by messaging apps such as WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Google chat etc. These apps typically "beep" every time the sending user hits "enter". And most - instead of composing decent paragraphs - hit "enter" every couple of words. The app beeps every few seconds as the result and keeps you busy while ".... is typing a message". 

I really miss the old days of email. Emails at least always had several sentences (often more) and you were notified at most once when the message arrived. But that was not real time, not disturbing enough. So now the "instant" options took over.

And many users have been completely captured by the instant stuff. I have friends who can send me a stream of IM notifications when they board a flight. Believe or not, it is still possible to board a flight WITHOUT posting about this on Facebook.

Then we have apps that use all possible channels. You buy an item online. The Shopify app emails you. The email app notifies you. The courier system sends you an email. And an SMS. And - if you have the courier app - the app sends you a notification too. That is FIVE events to start with. Oh no, there is more, as the banking app will notify you about the credit card charge. And the process more or less repeats several times - when the package hits the customs, when is handed for delivery, when delivered, finally asking if you liked the courier and the product.

Finally we have bugs resulting in multiple repeated notifications. And then it is even impossible to figure out who to contact with about this nonsense. As there often is a mobile carrier involved. The attached animation shows a recent event when I got about 30 notifications about the same package. Even after it was delivered.

I am close to the point of disabling all notifications from all apps. If something is really urgent for my family members or the closest friends, they can always call me.