Why Does The Facebook App Keep On Showing Fake Notifications

The issue with alerts extends beyond the fact that they provide randomized dopamine doses like a super-addictive slot machine. Notifications allow applications to distort your perception of the environment. They persuade you that your phone is vital and necessary.

How often do you really need an interruption in your day, something that makes your trousers flutter and makes you drop what you’re doing, whether it’s work or pleasure, and hurry to do something else? Isn’t it once or twice a day? So, why are you always bothered by notifications?

Your phone has a knack for pulling you in. The streams are endless, and the videos play automatically. A notification’s aim is to get you to pick up your phone and spend time with it. Not to inform you of an emergency or contact with your family. The alerts are for Apple’s, Samsung’s, Google’s, Facebook’s, and Twitter’s benefit. It’s not yours.

When you utilize their goods, all of these businesses profit. Google wants your attention as well as your data. Apple wants you to be so enamored with your iPhone that you get thrilled whenever a new one is released. What good are you to them if you simply keep your phone in your pocket all the time?

Notifications allow applications to distort your perception of the environment. They persuade you that your phone is vital and necessary.

I checked my notification center while writing this post to see what had recently piqued my interest. I limit my alerts to a minimum, then there was Reddit, alerting me to a hot subject. I told myself, “I should turn it off,” and then spent the next 10 minutes browsing around Reddit.

A notification isn’t the same as a friend engaging in conversation with you.

The consequences of Facebook’s “like” button were characterized by the programmer who created it as “bright pings of pseudo-pleasure.” We like the thought that a buddy loves us or enjoys anything we created or shared.

Loneliness and FOMO are the negative aspects of this. You constantly checking your phone, alerts or no notifications, because you don’t want to miss anything. Perhaps a loved one just texted you. Perhaps a major news story just broke. Perhaps your colleagues are joking around on Slack, and you’re missing out.

Would you purchase a gadget that catches your attention at odd times throughout the day only to learn that the Instagram computers made your name slide past an acquaintance’s screen halfway across the country? You did, after all.

Even when we strike it rich—aha, a buddy loved something I posted!—that isn’t always the case.

Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist, points out that social media companies design their products to make it appear as if your friends are interacting with you when, in reality, they are simply clicking a button that appeared in front of them while scratching their own itch for social approval. They post a picture, and Facebook recommends that you be tagged in it. They’re browsing around Twitter, and your tweet is there in front of them, so they heart it.

They didn’t go out of their way to find you. They aren’t engaging with you as a human being. They just pressed a button while being reminded of your presence.

Would you purchase a gadget that catches your attention at odd times throughout the day only to learn that the Instagram computers made your name slide past an acquaintance’s screen halfway across the country? You did, after all.

Apps combine the things you care about with the things that make money for someone else.

Not every notification is a load of nonsense. When my boss mentions my name on Slack, when an online buddy DMs me on Twitter, when my calendar indicates it’s time to go for the dentist, I really want to know. But it’s difficult to distinguish between what matters and what doesn’t.

I set my Twitter app not to notify me when someone likes a tweet, retweets me, or follows me since such actions aren’t urgent. (However, I like seeing responses, so I allow them.) When I use the app or Twitter.com, though, the tiny bell symbol always has a badge on it, indicating that there is something waiting for me if I click it. Even though I’ve informed Twitter that I don’t care about likes and retweets, it’s nearly always likes and retweets. All they want is for me to see the little emblem and click it. The few things that matter to me are mixed up with the many that don’t.

You don’t need alerts if you check an app often.

This bundle isn’t beneficial to me; it’s beneficial to Twitter since it keeps me interacting with the app. Advertising is how social media firms earn money, by cramming advertisements and sponsored content into your feed. Their business strategy is simple: you’ll see their advertisements since they’re bundled with items you’re interested in.

Facebook is particularly terrible at it. I just want to check whether anybody responded to anything I wrote, and that’s about it. However, I now have 11 Facebook alerts, just two of which are regarding comments from discussions in which I am participating. The others are stuff like, “Hey, a mutual friend liked a post in a group you’re both in.” The notification badge slot machine is a money-making machine for Facebook, but the information you and I receive from it is hardly helpful and certainly not urgent.

How to Get Out of the Hellhole of Notifications

Are you tired of being manipulated? Every step you make in 2018 America is being tracked and monetized. I won’t be able to completely stop it. However, I can teach you how to get rid of a lot of those annoying alerts.

To begin, you’ll need to figure out which of your alerts are worthless. The actual answer is nearly all of them, but I know that if you start turning them off, you’ll remember the rush of dopamine you get when you receive a notification from a favorite app. Stop! Don’t make a decision based on how the notification makes you feel when you see it; instead, consider how you feel about your whole goddamn existence knowing that this app is going to annoy you 100 times a day.

Allow real human texts and text-like communications. Signal, Facebook Messenger, Twitter Direct Messages, and not much else fall into this category for me.

You don’t need alerts if you check an app often. When you open the app again, you’ll see your Instagram likes. When you check your email again, you’ll see your emails.

News notifications are unnecessary. Do you know that many of your Android friends have never had news notifications turned on by default? They made it, and so can you. You’re more than likely to learn about news in another manner (see rule #2). If you’re concerned about missing out on the day’s hot subject, try Nuzzel to be notified when 15 of your friends share the same link.

All of the badges should be turned off. Stop applications from putting a tiny red-numbered badge on their icons in your settings. Allow just those badges if you only wish to utilize one or two applications.

Get in the habit of saying no. A new app will want to give you alerts as soon as you install it. No, you can’t. Most of those alerts will simply state, “You haven’t used this app in a while!” Set yourself a reminder for an activity you want to be reminded of, such as working exercise or keeping track of what you ate. Don’t put your faith in the app. You know it isn’t looking out for your best interests.

Use internet rather than desktop applications. When you install an app on your desktop, it typically has direct access to system-level alerts. If you’re using Slack in a browser tab, you can dismiss it anytime you want to concentrate on anything else. Instead of downloading applications, you may build home screen shortcuts to mobile websites.

Schedule a time when you won’t be bothered by notifications. If you use Slack for work, set it to snooze alerts from the moment you leave the workplace to the latest time you might possibly come. (Do you get up early on occasion? Rule #2 applies here.

It will take some tinkering to get your alerts down to the basic essentials. For example, you’ll have to go into the Twitter app and instruct it to just accept DMs. Email is much more difficult; you may need to use gmail filters to ensure that the items in your “priority inbox” are really important. I even went so far as to create a second email address dedicated to really essential communications, which my normal email accounts now forward to. I’ve set alerts on for that account alone, and off for everything else.

To Stop Your Phone From Bugging You Constantly, Perfectly Prune Your Notifications

If you’re anything like me, your phone rings constantly throughout the day, alerting you to totally irrelevant…

However, it’s better to disable notifications at the system level whenever feasible, so the app can’t surprise you with a new kind of notification the next time a developer wants more of your attention. You can disable an app’s alerts directly from the notification itself on both Android and iPhone.

Conclusion

You may feel lonely if you turn off your alerts. Start checking your applications to see if there are any new responses or likes. Stop doing it as soon as you catch yourself doing it! Consider the following question: What do I truly desire right now? Is it because of human contact? Hug your children or send an SMS to a real-life friend. Is it a kind of entertainment? Before you pick up your phone, choose a book or a movie. You may defeat the app’s designs and utilize your phone for your own purposes with practice and intention.

You should be able to walk away from your phone from time to time if you have a healthy connection with it. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m getting there.