There used to be something so exciting about a notification on my phone, a singular buzz for a WhatsApp or Messenger notification and a double buzz for an iMessage (or SMS if you’re that Android user friend).
Years ago, I would feel a sense of pride about the buzzing in my pocket or bag, like I was the most popular person in the world.
This might have stemmed from the fact I wasn’t allowed a mobile phone in high school (shout out to the Gizmodians with conservative parents!), so when I got my first mobile at the ripe old age of 16, I was addicted to the buzz.
Back in 2014, when iPhones brought out new iMessage group features, that was my Roman Empire. If I had a plan with two or more friends, and we had iPhones, you better believe I created a group chat. Each message from the group chat was a small hit of dopamine.
But then something changed. Once I started working in a serious editorial role, my attention needed to be turned from my fun screen to my work screen, and because I can get easily distracted, I needed to find a way to silence my notifications.
Enter Do Not Disturb mode. While it wasn’t new to the iPhone in the late 2010s, it was new to me. Every weekday morning, I pressed that little moon symbol when I entered my workplace, and little did I know that would be the beginning of something beautiful.
At first, it was hard to get used to, as a notification addict, I was accustomed to my phone lighting up every 15 minutes or so and I got to the point where I would touch my phone just to make sure it was alive and kicking.
Sure, if I was bored, I’d check to see how the group chats were faring but when you’re bogged down in work, you forget that you have friends sometimes.
But then, one day, something clicked, and I was fine with having a quiet phone. I even began to mute the group chats; they weren’t hitting like they’d used to. The notifications were becoming, dare I say it, annoying.
In 2021, Apple launched a revamp of the Do Not Disturb mode rebranding to Focus and adding additional modes to help users focus during certain times or activities such as work, sleeping or working out at the gym.
This was like Christmas Day to me, at first I used the work mode, popping it on between 9-5 and the only people that could get through my Fort Knox-esque silent mode gates were my parents.
Apple’s Sleep Focus mode was also a godsend; it is bliss having a blackout screen that doesn’t constantly burn my retinas AND blocks notifications.
Once I got an Apple Watch, the fitness mode made me curious, and that mode would switch on when I started any workout on my watch.
Only recently have I used personal mode, and yes, you guessed it, I blocked every single notification except calls and messages from my parents.
Similar to ex-boyfriends, I didn’t realise that something I used to love, could be a source of vexation. While I may seem like the Scrooge of notifications these days, I can honestly say that it has been quite healthy for my social life to not be distracted by the buzzing in my pockets.
Don’t get me wrong, I love still messaging my mates and talking absolute garbage all day long but I just don’t want to know when they’ve messaged me.
So if you’ve messaged me today and I didn’t reply, it’s not you, it’s not me, it’s my Personal Focus.
Image: Apple
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