Push Notifications From Popular Apps Are Becoming Increasingly Useless And Annoying (wired.com)

David Pierce, writing for Wired: Push notifications are ruining my life. Yours too, I bet. Download more than a few apps and the notifications become a non-stop, cacophonous waterfall of nonsense. Here's just part of an afternoon on my phone:
"Hi David! We found new Crown jewels and Bottle caps Pins for you!"
"Everyone's talking about Bill Nye's new book, Everything All at Once. Read a free sample."
"Alex just posted for the first time in a while."
I get notifications when an acquaintance comments on a stranger's Facebook posts, when shows I don't care about come to Netflix, and every single day at 6 PM when the crossword puzzle becomes available. Recently, I got a buzz from my close personal friends at Yelp. "We found a hot new business for you," it said. I opened the notification, on the off chance that Yelp had finally found the hot new business I've been waiting for. It did not. So I closed Yelp, stared into space for a second, and then opened Instagram. Productivity over. Over the last few years, there's been an increasingly loud call for a re-evaluation of the relationship between humans and smartphones. For all the good that phones do, their grip on our eyes, ears, and thoughts creates real and serious problems. "I know when I take [technology] away from my kids what happens," Tony Fadell, a former senior VP at Apple who helped invent both the iPod and the iPhone, said in a recent interview. "They literally feel like you're tearing a piece of their person away from them. They get emotional about it, very emotional. They go through withdrawal for two to three days." Smartphones aren't the problem. It's all the buzzing and dinging, endlessly calling for your attention.

Comments

Just turn that stuff off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Use your phone solely as a pull thing. Turn off auto-sync for your emails too. You don't need to respond in seconds. It's an email.

Then, your phone interrupts you only when you want it to.

first post?

Re:Just turn that stuff off.

[93 Escort Wagon]

It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. On the iPhone you can enable or disable notifications on an app by app basis. And, for most apps, you can even control how intrusively that app will be allowed to notify you.

Heck, you even get prompted "allow notifications from xxxxxxx?" before the app is allowed to bother you. Remember - just because they want to do it doesn't mean you have to allow them to do it.

Also - if an app behaves badly, don't allow it to run in the background: Settings -> General -> Background App Refresh

Really, this seems like more of an user education problem than anything else.

Re:Just turn that stuff off.

[sabri]

Really, this seems like more of an user education problem than anything else.

This, exactly this.

And it also goes to show how bloated the TFA's phone is. All those useless apps installed, each and every one of them copying his contacts, emails and whatever. Seriously, you allow a crossword puzzle app (why the F anyone would have that on their phone goes beyond me) to send you notifications? Even Yelp is questionable.

This is a self-inflicted wound from this clueless luser.

Re:Just turn that stuff off.

[Cyberpunk Reality]

Yes and no. Yes, you shouldn't allow your phone to do that kind of thing. And no, because while he may be clueless on some objective scale, he's representative of the overwhelming majority of smartphone users. The non-savvy users are a major vulnerability, but they're not the cause. The problem is an insecure by design phone ecosystem, which in turn is driven by greed.

Re:Just turn that stuff off.

[rtb61]

This of course represents the majority of users. You are aware that slashdot forum posters are a tiny minority of users. Sure we get by with install app, app clunkym remove app. Install a bunch of apps in the beginning get used to the app marketing spiel, fool around with them, remove them quickly. Then there is systems audit, something only we do, review every app, not used enough, gone and this done a few times a year.

We do all sorts of stuff to our tech gear, they we gained and retained information to achieve but we are a tiny minority. For the rest of the market, I am not the tiniest bit suprised that their phones run like shite, are a tech mess and waste more of their time than it saves.

Simple solution

[geek]

Turn them the fuck off and stop whining about it.

I automatically disable them

[HalAtWork]

The only ones I need are messaging and email. Everything else is on pull.

You can turn that stuff off

[Gilgaron]

Settings > Notifications There isn't much reason to leave most of that on, especially if it is hurting your productivity. You don't leave the sound effect for a new email message on, do you?

Got that right...

[Bodhammer]

Bill Nye - "Useless and Annoying" - Fo' sure!. Alton Brown is a better scientist than he is.

This guy was a douche in Seattle 20 years ago and now he a useless tool nationwide. ESAD!

Complaining vs. doing

[QuietLagoon]

I get zero push notifications from apps. Zero. None. It was not that difficult to turn them all off. You probably could have done it in the same amount of time you took to write about them. Just another instance of complaining vs doing.

Re:Disable them on the Apps that you do not want.

[Anubis IV]

Exactly. When the author starts off with "Download more than a few apps and the notifications become a non-stop, cacophonous waterfall of nonsense", I couldn't help but laugh, since that hasn't been my experience at all. Mine goes more like:

1) Download app
2) Launch app
3) Receive prompt to enable notifications
4) Deny it

Unless an app has provided me with a compelling reason for allowing notifications prior to prompting me to enable notifications, I never enable them in the first place. Simple as that.

Well designed apps that respect you will wait until you do something that warrants a notification (e.g. you go into settings and opt-in to being notified about something) before prompting you to allow notifications. Ones that treat you poorly will prompt you at first launch. And if an app that was allowed to show me notifications ever abuses that permission, I'll immediately kill that permission in the phone's global settings.

Re: First! disabled

[cayenne8]

my rotary phone does not push does not pull

And if you have a modern smart phone, Einstein.....you can switch the permissions to annoy you with push notifications OFF.

In fact, pretty much every app I've ever installed right off to bat, asked if I would allow push permissions, to which I clicked NO....

How did the guy that submitted this story MISS such a trivial thing...?

Good solution to wrong problem

[Roger W Moore]

That's a great solution if you are a smart user with a dumbphone. However, the problem we have here is a smartphone with a dumb user.

Re:Protip

[farble1670]

Protip #2: Nothing involving money enters my phone. No banking apps, no credit card apps, no NFC payments, nothing. Saves a whole lot of hassle if my phone ever decides to disappear, fail or explode (not necessarily in that order).

Protip #4: No money enters my wallet. No cash. No credit cards. No blank checks. Nothing. Saves a whole lot of hassle if my wallet ever decides to disappear, get lost, or stolen.

Protip #5: No person ever enters my car. No friends. No family. Not even myself. Nobody. Saves a whole lot of hassle if my car ever breaks down.