After reading The Distraction Addiction and writing my tech diary, I came to the realization that all my negative interactions with technology have to do with push notifications distracting me from whatever I was doing, and with groupchats preventing me from talking to people in person. At the end of my tech diary, I proposed an experiment: turn off all push notifications for a week and see how that changes the ways I interact with technology. Surprisingly, I actually went through with it. Even more surprisingly, it was an enjoyable experience
Now, I wasn't able to actually turn off all of my notifications (My mother would kill me if I missed a text from her) but I did turn off all notifications for emails and groupchats. As a result, I spent much less time reading inane messages, and I came to the realization that I really didn't need to read messages right as they are sent. I ended up reading groupchat messages only in my downtime, while i was waiting for food at a restaurant or waiting for an elevator. I stopped stressing out about missing messages, which used to be a big problem for me. I also ended up spending a lot more time talking to the people I'm with, rather than texting the people who weren't there.
Overall, I would call this experiment a great success. In fact, I'm going to keep these settings for the foreseeable future. I would highly recommend this experiment to anyone who has ever gotten annoyed by having their focus broken by a text message that really didn't need to be read immediately.
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