Notifications are scary

Notifications control our lives. Every minute of my day, as my phone buzzes, I can't stop this unending desire to see what the notification was. I'm consumed by the apps on my phone.

In a day, it doesn't seem so noticeable. But as the days add up, I live my life by the notification, more than by the moments. We all see these productivity tips about keeping your phone away, your tabs minimal etc. but my issue with all of this is, the underlying issue is not being fixed.

The apps on our phone are designed to drain our attention. For their vanity user engagement metrics, we face the consequences. In their fight to keep their users on their applications, they're ruining our souls, slowly but significantly. Bit exaggerated? I disagree.

My mental peace, focus and clarity are all affected by the never ending amount of notifications. There's so much unnecessary information overload that I can't seem to focus on what matters for more than a few minutes at a time.

We need psychological protection laws on tech more than data protection. Data protection is easy to talk about, its tangible. But a person's level of focus, ability to think, their creativity, these are intangible factors that are invisible and hard to measure. But if a generation of people have them reduced, the impact will be unimaginable.

I know that if needed, we can turn off notifications, keep our work modes on and etc. But that makes it seem as if we're the problem. It's not the average user's fault they're bombarded for attention, its the companies that build these unethical platforms that focus on keeping you there more than actually being useful to you.

We don't need apps and work modes, we need an industrial level shift of mindset.