Occasionally, my mind gets into an almost comatose loop, and I find myself going round and round the same websites, over and over again. I hate the loop — and I’m growing to hate the websites and all that they stand for in 2014 — but still I do it compulsively, habitually, regularly.
First I’ll check Twitter. Then I’ll check Facebook. Then I’ll check Google+. Occasionally I’ll poke my head in the sites for my Final Fantasy XIV guild or the Squadron of Shame, but more often than not, it’s just those three sites. And there’s rarely anything interesting to see on any of them — but still I feel compelled to do it, particularly if there’s a little red number at the top of the page.
The same is true on my phone. I’ll check it every few minutes, looking for little icons across the status bar and hoping that something interesting might have happened. But it rarely does, and still I do it.
I’m talking about “notifications”, one of my least favourite developments in modern technology. Turns out I have the sort of brain that gets extremely uncomfortable if something is left “unfinished”; if a little red number is there, suggesting that there’s something that requires your attention.
Trouble is, most notifications these days aren’t necessary. On Google+, since the Squadron of Shame moved its base of operations to its own site, the only notifications I get are from people who gave a comment I left on a YouTube video six months ago a “+1”, saying that they “liked” what I said without actually having to interact directly with me. On Facebook, where I rarely post any more, my only notifications come from replies to a comment thread I long since lost interest in. And Twitter’s 2014 incarnation sees fit to notify you not only when someone replies to you, but also when they “favourite” or retweet something you posted — or, in comedically ridiculous levels of Inception-style madness, when someone retweets something you retweeted.
The provocation of this sort of compulsive behaviour is entirely deliberate, of course; these sites’ use of notifications — and mobile app developers’ use of notifications, too, for that matter — is designed to get you doing exactly what I’m doing, which is visiting the sites or booting up the apps several times a day just to see if the notifications are anything useful. They inevitably aren’t, but there’s always the hope.
Provoking this sort of behaviour can’t be healthy. It doubtless plays havoc with people who already have more obsessive compulsive tendencies than I do, but just from a user experience perspective it’s frustrating to never feel like you’re “free” — there’s always something out there demanding your attention. Look at me, that little red number says. I’m important.
It’s because of all this that I find myself considering daily whether or not I should nuke my social media presence altogether and simply interact with people through more private channels — email, blog comments, chat messages, the Squad forum. Every day it gets more and more tempting to do so, so one of these days soon I might just do it — and this time for good. This isn’t what I signed up for at the dawn of the social media revolution.
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I’ve been feeling alot of the same anxieties myself over “the loop.” Although, I have learned that I don’t get wrapped up into it too badly when I’m at home, and engaged with something meaningful. In my case, the loop is something that I do on impulse, out of boredom. This is especially true when I’m at work (as I don’t consider anything that I do from 8-5 daily as meaningful or engaging). I’m pretty vocal about my pride in abandoning Facebook, and I’m working on cutting down how vocal I am on Twitter; however, I just can’t see myself making the clean break that I secretly wish for. I don’t know how I’d create awareness for my art if I didn’t use Twitter & Tumblr to share and network. As someone who creates content online, I’m sure you have the same hangups.
When I see this it makes me glad I haven’t succumbed to the temptation of joining Twitter. 😀
I guess I try to remember when I’m stressed or just tired of it all: We Don’t Owe Anyone Anything. Helps keep you healthy and less obligated.
On one hand, I’m a Linux user. I check my RSS feed, Twitter *and* even a few mailing lists for security and new packages that need more TLC to work. But that’s what’s truly, 100% necessary for me as a sysadmin.
On the other hand, most other things I do online are categorized into “things I *might* need”, which mostly consist of promotions and sales for things I’ll genuinely need sometimes, and “things that I do for fun (but are no fun without moderation)”.
Take care and remember what’s really important to you, it isn’t entertainment or being informed if it’s stressing you out too much.
Absolutely. This is the philosophy I’m starting to lean towards. It’s a bit of a turnaround from a few years ago, when I immersed myself in all things social. I’m not sure when I realised that social media isn’t really all that social — it’s mostly selfish — but I can’t stop thinking about it these days.