We live in notification hell

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

It starts in a way that's innocent. The app asks if you want to send push notifications. You think? What harm would it cause? I want to know when my burrito is ready. When you download more apps, they all need your permission to send you notifications, and before you know it, your lock screen is awash with apps.

The apps didn't stop working. They want to be engaged. They want you to know that your favorite items are on sale, that your delivery driver is five stops away, and that your child just had a blow up at daycare. Notification Hell is a place where we all reside.

We haven't lived here often. For a while, companies like Apple wouldn't let app developers run all willy nilly with the power to request our attention. The power should be used for good. That lasted only a short time. As long as we have opted into them, app developers can send us marketing notifications. You have opted into a lot of them if you didn't want to have any notifications at all. The call is coming from inside the house as well, as Apple is promoting its services in settings menus and SAMSUNG is trying to sell you a new phone while you use your old one. There is no hiding places.

The problem isn't just ads. The digital assistants on our phones are trying to understand us. They don't really know what's helpful and what's not. When I have a flight on my calendar, it will suggest a way to put my phone in airplane mode. I was asked if I wanted to dial into the meeting immediately after that. Digital assistants are paving the way to Notification Hell.

It learns new tricks, like how to identify a beer or a latte in a photo, and then pesters you to look at how it can identify all the photos you took of beer and lattes. When it finds a bunch of similar shots of my cat sleeping on different pieces of furniture, it wants me to know, like a dog that found a stick. I took the pictures of my brother. They are similar.

Our operating system developers are sympathetic to our plight. Non-time-sensitive notifications can be delivered in a daily digest. It is possible to have some apps quietly deliver notifications unless they are time-sensitive. If you do that, you have to sort of solve a puzzle.

This was tried with Amazon. I thought I would only receive notifications when a package arrives. I did this wrong because a grocery order sat outside of my house for five hours. I allow Amazon to send me notifications as it pleases.

We are trapped in notification hell and will not be rescued. The onus is on us to find our way out even though we don't have a lot of tools. I know I'm here for a long time until I figure out my notification settings. It is comforting to know that there are other people with me.