Notifications corrode free will
I wake up and immediately reach for my phone. Notifications flood the screen — WhatsApp, email, LinkedIn, Twitter. Still in bed, I open LinkedIn and before I realise, I’m scrolling. Someone raised funds. Someone switched jobs. A new AI model just dropped. Inundated by updates, I forget why I opened LinkedIn. Ah, yes, I check the message. It’s an Inmail.
The day begins and I am already in reactive mode. I check slack messages one by one, responding to them. At noon, I receive a call from a client who has a new request and I note it down. The rest of the day is spent hopping between Whatsapp and Slack while trying to get some work done.
Sitting on my bed after work, I feel uneasy about the day. Was I alive today? Did “I” exist? Did “I” do anything? I remember one of those Boston Dynamic videos, where a robot runs on the treadmill, jumping through obstacles put for it. That’s how the day feels, like I’m not in control, merely responding to the stimulus of endless notifications and messages. On days like these, I wonder whether free will even exists.
Often I scroll Instagram or Youtube for hours. The exhaustion that follows is difficult to explain. You’re not happy or satisfied after a binge reel session, instead you are agitated and restless. You crave more of the dopamine rush, that I usually satiate by eating snacks or watching Netflix.
Occasionally, I sit quietly to think or relax, and the phone keeps buzzing. I ignore a single chime, but it doesn’t end there. There’s a train of messages and now you are distracted. In those moments of frustration, I feel an overwhelming urge to throw my phone across the room. If I decide to open Instagram, that’s at least an act of agency, however fleeting. But when I’m trying to relax or focus, and a notification pulls me back to my phone, that’s worst.
Back in 2009, Apple introduced push notifications as a service for app developers. What must have seemed like an innovation at the time might actually have been the beginning of a crisis. A generation who grew up with these devices, and living a life so enmeshed with the technology that has stripped them the skill of deciding for themselves. A generation living in anxiety. Doesn’t this erode our ability to live deliberately, according to our choices?
I see the book, Brave New World by Huxley playing out. Characters kept perpetually in a state of happiness and content through the use of drug called soma.
I read a book last year that compared social media addiction to that of cocaine or cigerettes. Everyone knows how bad a drug addiction could look like - years of life lost, damaged relations but I don’t think enough of us feel the same way about social media, or notifications.
What’s the opportunity cost of all those hours spent on Instagram? It’s the conversations with friends that didn’t happen. The hobbies that were never started. The sleep that you never caught up on. At the very least, it’s time that could have been spent watching a good movie, something that actually enriches us, instead of mindless eight-second dopamine hits.
Wanting freedom is one of the core human feelings. To act on their own will, to make their own choices. Notifications are the antithesis to freedom