Notifications

One of the cur­rent trends in the digi­tal life­style is “digi­tal mini­ma­lism” or “digi­tal detox”. Basi­cal­ly, there’s two ele­ments peo­p­le want to get more con­trol of: how much time they spend on their cell­pho­ne and how much they are dis­trac­ted by notifications.
The­re seems to be a small indus­try pop­ping up that offers more and more devices that all ser­ve just one func­tion. “Dis­trac­tion free wri­ting” or music play­ers, various forms of ebooks and of cour­se dumbphones.
In a way, I’m fasci­na­ted by that trend – becau­se it is so very much an expres­si­on of capi­ta­lism. More shi­ny. More stuff. More wid­gets in your life, in the name of Mini­ma­lism. Get­ting peo­p­le to con­su­me more, becau­se they have an issue with overconsumption.
But it shows: this isn’t an easy pro­blem to sol­ve. This is not just a case of “so con­fi­gu­re your pho­ne that you’re not dis­trac­ted by it”. Tho­se kind of ans­wers don’t cut it, either.
I don’t have an ans­wer – but I do see the com­ple­xi­ties, and more of a deba­te of what we want to have, who we want to be is required.
In the mean­ti­me, I’ll con­ti­nue to smi­le iro­ni­cal­ly about tho­se new dis­trac­tion-free devices.