I was on a work call yesterday, and an uncle of mine called up on WhatsApp. I saw the incoming call on WhatsApp on my desktop, and cut it. I also messaged my uncle, on WhatsApp, that I would call him back later.
Today morning, while catching up on messages after having woken up, I saw a message from him:
“Still on the call?”
My near and dear ones will tell you (and the more dramatic ones among them, which is all of them, will have tears in their eyes as they do so) that I am very bad at returning calls.
Today’s blogpost is a defiant one, for I’m here to tell you that not only do I agree with them, I hope to get better at this skill. Yes, I’m bad at returning calls and responding to messages, and hooray for me.
This is my phone screen, right now:
As you can see, there isn’t a single app on my home screen. Nor is there a single notification, except for the little 0 in ().
That little icon is my favorite setting on my phone. It stands for focus mode, and it prevents me from accessing YouTube, WhatsApp, Signal, GChat, Slack, GMail, Twitter and whatever other apps I want to banish from my head. It stands guard from nine in the morning until five in the evening, seven days a week. Post five pm, it relents and lets me use these apps.
Why is the word “accessing” in bold and italics in the previous paragraph? Because while I can access these apps on my phone after 5 pm, their notifications are permanently turned off. I’m trying, you see, a novel experiment with focus mode and no notifications:
I will decide when to use my phone, rather than having the phone decide when to disturb me.
How is it going, you ask? Oh just fine, thank you very much.
There are downsides, of course, such as forgetting to return calls from uncles. Friends and family frequently express frustration at the fact that I have not responded to their messages, and about once a day, I get a “Don’t you ever check your phone?”.
The only correct answer, dear reader, is “Hardly ever”:
I’m also just not replying to everything any more, or indeed most things. This might not apply to you, but because I publish things semi-regularly and my contact information is out there on the internet, I get a fair amount of unsolicited email. Most of it is charming and well-meaning (a small proportion of it is not, of course) but that, I am realising, does not mean that I have to reply to it. Previously, I used to reply to everything from strangers as promptly as if it was from a close friend or colleague. I am beginning to realise that this was an odd thing to do. Just because someone has looked up my email address doesn’t mean I owe them anything; I agree with Elyse Myers that the communication norms of our always-on existence are strange. As she says, the fact that “someone at any time, any place, any mental state can send you a message, and now you’re the asshole if you don’t respond to it” feels backwards if you think about it for very long.
https://thebrowser.com/nocomplaints/i-am-no-longer-good-at-email/?ref=no-complaints-newsletter
The default response of our species has become “respond as quickly as possible”, and not responding is seen as the rude, impolite thing to do.
Responding as quickly as possible was fine in the early days of our hyperconnected existence. Responding to emails was fun, and our generation positively salivated at the chance to chat with folks using ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Chat and the likes. But with the advent of WhatsApp and the mobile phone, things have very quickly gotten way out of hand.
I will still respond to work messages, of course. And contrary to the protestations of my near and dear ones, I do respond. Eventually, I will admit, rather than immediately, but still.
But “near and dear ones” and “work” are groupings that I get to define, and not the sender of the message. Cuts both ways, of course, and this goes without saying. That is, when I send messages to other people, the same rules apply!
It is fashionable at this point to talk about how I am a more productive person who is calmer, more at peace, more well-read and in general a happier soul.
Nothing of the sort has happened, and it’s not even close.
My to-do list grows ever longer, I still grit my teeth at every little provocation, piece is but a morsel of chicken in my biryani, and I still remain much better at buying books than reading them.
But on the asset side of the balance sheet is this: there will be a quiet smile on my face when I respond to the next person who asks me if I don’t ever check my phone. This much is true.
“As little as possible” I will say, a beatific smile on my cherubic visage. And I will walk on nonchalantly.
Zero notifications, it would seem, has a marginally positive impact on making me a happier soul.
And that’s good enough for me.
EconForEverybody 