Notifications on mobile..

slinxy

slinxy

slinxy

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How many real time notifications do you get on your phone?

I’ve turned everything off expect for text (i)messages, phone calls and FaceTime. With those being on silent.

The only real time app notification I have on is for my house video cameras and find my, both pretty important; in case someone is robbing me or I dropped my car keys, wallet etc. obviously I have my calendars notifications too, no point in having them in my calendar, if i don’t get alerts.

The rest of the stuff personal emails, filled stock orders, eBay bids, fb likes, messages etc all can wait till I pick up my phone.

I only ask as I’m on holiday with a friend and sharing a room and OMG!! Their phone is like flashing, beeping and vibrating constantly.. talk about being overwhelmed!

Maybe it’s just me being sick of being “pinged” at work all the time so I don’t want the same when I’m not working. Or them being lazy and not setup their notifications, sleep mode or DND mode correctly, but surely most people turn off notifications while locked for at least 90% of the apps that they have installed?
 
I agree completely with your approach. I get banner alerts for messages (iMessage and WhatsApp). Phone rings and iMessage buzzes/rings, but nothing else. You’ve just reminded me to switch off uber notifications (actually not that useful when using the app and mostly daily spam). Phone is always on silent/vibrate mode unless I’m on call or expecting an important phone call.

Basically anything else can wait. I have my phone in my hand quite enough, so don’t need any more notifications to pick it up.
 
Calls from family on "The List" (regardless of whether my phone is on silent or DND).

Security cameras/Doorbell at home (intrusion zones).

Car intrusion/impact detection.

Dog's collar if she's further than 50m away from me (slightly annoying since we bought a new Chuckit launcher), or she leaves the house/garden (foxes dug under the fence, behind the shed, so she went investigating...)

Outside of those, everything else is low priority and picked up whenever I have time to get to them.
 
Absolutely everything is turned off, apart from calls from the three people in my favourites which is immediate family, and we never call each other (we text) so that way I know it's an emergency if they do call.

I don't have very many apps on my phone anyway, and everything else can wait. I mostly use it for banking and MFA these days, and going to move my MFA to a physical OTP key Although more and more things seem to be going app based, had to do an identity check for buying a house and the only mechanism available was an app.
 
I know it's required these days for all sorts of good reasons but I really do hate 2FA/constant notifications for doing anything with my accounts.

Log in with my Microsoft account, get a text with a code, and then an email telling me that I've logged in. Make a purchase with my PayPal account, get a notification telling me I've just made a purchase (twice if it's connected to Google Wallet), and an email telling me I've just made a purchase. It's as if the developers of these things think we all have dementia - and I know plenty of people do but those of us that are with it we should have the option of disabling it all. It just makes me want to use a fake email address and disable 2FA, consequences be damnned.

Security that's annoying/inconveniencing will just end up being ignored. Developers need to make it work better or otherwise people will just end up not using it at all.
 
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I turned my phone to silent permanently around 2018. I turned off vibrate in 2020. I don't even know what my phone would sound like if the ringtone went off.*

I have all work related apps (Teams, Outlook) set to no notifications at all, not even on screen. I have my work stuff open constantly while I'm working and don't want to see it when I'm not.

I did get give a fitness tracker/smart watch a few years ago so I have set that to buzz once if I get a message from a human - SMS, WhatsApp, phone calls.

Emails are designed to wait for you and shouldn't make a noise. Social media similar, or even less. I think I get a visual notification if someone replies to me or tags me on Reddit or Instagram.
 
I turn most of them off, outdoor camera/doorbell enabled, and nursery app updates.

Beyond that, if you’re expecting me to be social, either phone me or wait until I open my phone

Having said that, phone is on silent by default, and only on loud if I’m expecting an important call
 
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I only have personal message notifications.

Pavlov would be overjoyed to see how many people respond to their phones constantly throughout the day.

Nah. If it's important it can wait or I can be called.
 
Most apps I have muted. Likes of WhatsApp and messenger I have allowed.cantbstand the constant beeping to let you know something mundane. No wonder people get fomo.
 
I wish i was popular enough to worry about notifications

Its mainly rubbish spam emails


I dont feel loved :(
 
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Emails really don't need to give you notifications:


I do try and periodically unsubscribe/filter regular emails which aren't from a human. But obviously there are tons of emails that do matter and 95% are automatic emails from stuff I already know about. So, no notifications!
 
I have only messenger/signal and banking on notification with sound, and email and a few other apps are allowed silent notifications. Certainly no web sites or news apps or anything.

I really wish I could rate-limit particular apps. I don't need notifications every 10s as the family chat kicks off.
 
Mr Jack said:
I have only messenger/signal and banking on notification with sound, and email and a few other apps are allowed silent notifications. Certainly no web sites or news apps or anything.

I really wish I could rate-limit particular apps. I don't need notifications every 10s as the family chat kicks off.
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I tend to mute group chats but annoyingly it then gives no notifications at all, even silent ones. I'd just prefer to stop my watch buzzing, but keep the on screen marker.
 
LuckyBenski said:
I tend to mute group chats but annoyingly it then gives no notifications at all, even silent ones. I'd just prefer to stop my watch buzzing, but keep the on screen marker.
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Yeah, I mute sometimes, but WhatsApp's shortest mute is way longer than I want. I just want to mute for 10 minutes or half an hour or something like that. I'm not disinterested in the chat, I just don't want the constant buzzing and beeping over activity.
 
just text messages and phone calls, nothing else is important, even texts I consider them non urgent forms of communication.
although I let my bank app tell me when I spent money just incase, it's not me using it.

I don't need pestering by apps and websites just so they can remind me "they exist" it probably helps your phone not listing them as an app you havent used in 90 days or whatever and prompt you to remove it.
most app updates are probably the same as well, half the time they never give patch notes, it's probably just blank code update so the app is "fresh" installed on your phone

Don't be naïve and think app developers etc are pushing notifications and updates for your benefit.
just apps desperate to stay relevant on your phone, don't be a mug


It's no different to the spam you see cluttering up social media feeds


There's no way most of these apps need updating on a regular basis.. like supermarket apps etc they use a web backend they could just update that... they aren;t really apps anymore they are more like "browser shortcuts that don't need a browser"


THere's literally no reason to install an app for a website, they just harvest your phones data unless it something useful like banking notifications.
 
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The only non-standard apps I allow notifications from are things like Whatsapp, Deliveroo, UberEats, Monzo/Natwest, Reddit and Duo Mobile.

Social media apps I set all of those to have no push notifications or notification bubbles. I like the check them in my own time. Sadly that means I often miss a lot of messages!
 
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