Tackling the torment of phone notifications

They interrupt conversations and overload our brains. But there is a way to tame the beast.

- Lim Sun Sun

The lunch with my business contact had started out warm and cordial. Laughing at each other's jokes, the conversation flowed briskly as we discovered a common vocabulary, mutual friends and shared experiences.

But there was a constant intruder in the form of our table trembling ever so slightly each time his phone vibrated with a notification. We could ignore it for the most part until the vibrations' tempo picked up and I could sense his rising anxiety as he stole discreet glances at the screen.

Too polite to check his phone, he continued chatting but was increasingly distracted, whereas I began to experience secondary unease. Even though my phone was not set to vibrate, I started to imagine the notifications it was silently emitting and wondered if any needed my immediate attention.

I fought the urge to retrieve it from my handbag and sneak a quick peek. Eventually his phone was practically rattling with vibrations and I urged him to pick it up.

He gratefully excused himself and returned to sheepishly explain that an office emergency had indeed erupted but that he had resolved it, for the time being. I had, in turn, checked my phone in his absence and realised that I, too, had pressing matters to handle. The rest of the lunch was relatively stilted as both our minds were elsewhere, and we never quite recovered our earlier conviviality.

Such is the torment of phone notifications in our connected lives.

All the way from breaking news alerts and social media updates, to promotional offers, clinic reminders or a family group chat explosion, we are bombarded by a relentless stream of notifications, be they uplifting, distressing or downright mundane.

THE NOTIFICATIONS INDUSTRY