Overcoming the notification anxiety
How the Apple Watch impacted my life negatively
I can trace back to the exact day my notification obsession reached the addiction level.
On April 9, 2015 I stayed awake until midnight. Not a feat for me, since I rarely sleep before 1:00 am. As the clock on my computer marked the new day, I started refreshing my browser. I also had my iPhone next to me. It was the day the Apple Watch became available for pre-order.
After a few minutes of being unsuccessful on my computer, I unlocked my phone and purchased the freshly released Apple Watch.
The Apple Watch is a wonderful device, and neatly designed. It gives 80s kids the future we dreamed of, allowing us to make calls; get directions; and receive messages, images, and heartbeats all from our wrists. It’s so cool.
I got rid of it a couple of months ago.
Well, it’s on a drawer. It hasn’t gone anywhere. Yet.
It fueled a turn for the worse with my notifications addiction, an addiction that dates back to the early 2000s when I chatted on IRC with my friends, acquaintances, and strangers.
I got to a point where most of my life circled around new notifications. I felt the need to have new followers, new messages, new matches, new tweets, new likes… And the satisfaction of getting those lasted no more than a few seconds. It like I was living in a self-imposed episode of Black Mirror. I needed my phone close to me at all times. I couldn’t let a message sit there for more than five minutes or I could be missing on something important.
It became unsustainable. I wasn’t paying full attention to anything, I was thinking about the next thing all the time. Until the moments when there was nothing new, and then I couldn’t wait for my friends to reply, and I would think they didn’t care. Because answering a message takes 10 seconds. Right?
After discussions with loved ones, misunderstandings, false moments of disappointment, and paranoia, I saw the disease for what it was. A notification addiction. I felt that I was so focused on my real-time connection with other people, that I didn’t allocate time to be myself. To do calligraphy, play the ukulele, have a chat while looking into my friend’s eyes, and not into the tiny screens that I own.
As Chuck Palahniuk put it in Fight Club:
The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.
I didn’t feel like taking such a radical approach as Tyler Durden. But there was something I could do right away. At a smaller scale.
I replaced my Apple Watch with a gorgeous Braun watch. It’s a timeless design (ironic, for a watch). It tells me what’s the hour of the day. And though I feel the weight on my wrist, I don’t get the vibration when someone writes me — it’s like a nicotine patch.
With that, I relegate the smartwatch to the drawer until I learn to let go; to go on about my day without thinking about what other people are doing, or if there are text messages waiting for my answer.
Until I enjoy my days, as I am re-learning to do now.
Until the notifications feel like a mere helpful reminder, instead of scattering my thoughts and my concentration.
Or forever.
I want to keep buying every new interesting gadget that comes out. As a user interface designer, I am thrilled to find out about the new patterns and paradigms that are possible with every new technology. But now I will also be paying close attention to the impact those devices have in my life. And make sure it’s for the better.
My new watch is as stylish as the previous one. And doesn’t need charging.
I might get an Apple Watch again, but in the future, I will mute most of the notifications right away, and decide what’s important before a device suggests it for me.
I hope you found this article interesting. For more content on User Experience, User Interface, and Product Design follow me on Twitter.
