Notification Overload

Notification- the action of notifying someone or something. It is something many of us rely on for our phones and if we don’t receive a notification then we never got it! “I called you like 3 times last night.” “Well, I don’t have anything on my phone, so no you didn’t.” We are constantly waiting for our phones to light up, vibrate, ring, and even flash to let us know that our devices needs our attention. Even if our devices didn’t light up or vibrate, we still check to see if something is there, something we might have missed. 

            As a working college student, I rely on my phone more than I think. I view my weekly and bi-weekly schedules on two different apps, I message managers and co-workers through text messaging and other apps, I have four different email apps (one for school, one for G-mail, one for iCloud, and one for general life), then lastly I have my social media’s. The social media apps definitely do take most of my time, however without my phone and certain apps, it would affect my work life. Not to mention one job specifically uses IMessage every single day to send it drink orders and send massive group chats.  If you don’t have an IPhone, then you simply just won’t be in those group chats and the managers would have to text you individually. I know, it is silly. This has actually forced some co-workers to switch from Android to Apple, however this is not conversation about what kind of phone it is but what phones do to us. 

            Notifications are important concerning education and careers. However, over the last couple of years, I have grown to despise notifications. Especially notifications from social media like snap chat. For one, why do we need to be notified a person is typing/messaging you? This means for every person you are specifically messaging on Snapchat there are two notifications. This used to not be an issue but at some point my friends and I migrated to only using Snapchat which meant constant and double notifications from them. After 5 years of college and constant studying for big exams, hearing and seeing my phone constantly notifying me I had enough and did something I didn’t think I would ever need to do. I turned off my notifications from Snapchat. For some, this might make them uncomfortable and for some this might make them feel liberated. I just know it feels so much better to not constantly have these Snapchat notifications on my phone anymore. However, I have noticed after almost a year of having them off, I tend to pick up my phone, unlock it, and then check to see if anyone snapped me. I still can’t figure out which one is technically better but I do now it has helped my studying habits and my annoyance level of all these notifications decreased. Another thing that I noticed after turning off Snapchat notifications was that I started to receive more notifications from other social medias! Simple one’s like so and so just went LIVE!, so and so just posted a fleet (Twitter story) watch it before it disappears, or so and so hasn’t posted in a while and they just posted! I’m sorry but I do not care if this person just posted or is going live. If I did care I would ask to be notified and instead I’m getting these unwanted notifications and distractions during my day. It is almost like my phone knew I didn’t want to be bothered anymore so decided to generate these knew notifications to hopefully get my to click on a social media app. 

            During class discussions, no one seemed to be bothered about notifications and some brought up how easy it is to simply just turn off the notifications on Settings. The professor kept pushing and pushing about how difficult it actually is to turn off notifications and how it should be a lot easier to do it. But most of us just didn’t feel the same since we utilize turning the notifications off and/or using the Do Not Disturb feature on our phones. However, not everyone has that privilege of completely silencing their phones due to their jobs, family, and emergencies so the question lies, why is it that we have to take those extra steps to stop receiving unwanted and unnecessary notifications? My professor asked why isn’t there just one button people can click to turn off these notifications. For obvious reasons, apps make it to be extra steps because if it was easier then this means less attention on their apps and less distractions which could possibly mean less distraction time on their phones. 

            This issue might not even sound like a problem to you or it might sound like an issue to you. Some people probably don’t even notice they are constantly receiving notifications to distract them and others do notice and despise them. After all this, I just know that if you don’t want these notifications sometimes it is better to go to the source and switch off which notifications you don’t want. Even on apps like text messaging, if you don’t want to receive messages from certain people or group chats there is the way to silence those specific chats. Or if you can, just switch the whole phone off and take a break!

Social Media and its effect on mental health.

In a world where it seems that we care more about our phones than any other possession we might own, its easy to see where in some aspects of our society we tend to focus more on our phones than any of our personal relationships. Many parents described their children's connection to their phones as an "addiction", and the thing is that in certain cases, it actually is. The Addiction center describes Social Media addiction as a behavioral addiction that is defined by being overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable urge to log on to or use social media. Many questions might arise from this statement, such as is all phone usage evil? Is it easy to fight this addiction? The answer to these questions in short, is no. 

https://cwuobserver.com/17010/news/a-profile-of-social-media-addiction/

Why exactly do we get addicted to social media? The answer is quite simple, a Harvard study showed that when we get notifications from our networking sites, the part of the brain connected to the consumption of addictive substances lights up. In short, Social Networking is quite literally a drug according to our brains. We believe to receive "Rewards" such as likes or retweets or pins that gives us a feeling of validation, and this need is easily achievable with our fingertips by simply scrolling through our social feeds (immediate results with minimal effort). Many can argue that Social Media makes us conceited since studies show that the most amount of dopamine release occurs when one is talking about themselves or is the center of focus. 

Where the issue begins from can be a more complicated topic, since this can stem from many issues dealing with oneselves.The issue relays on the users usage of their device, and if they begin to engage in negative practices of depending on their phone when they feel lonely or depressed, they can become so engaged to their phone that they start to allow personal relationships to dwindle. How exactly do we combat this? In the app store there are even apps created to reduce the usage of your phone by sending you reminders of "Hey! You need to get off your phone you sociopath". There are also other ways to combat the addiction, such as delete apps, disable notifications from social media, dedicate time to hobbies or activities. Of course, this proves to be a major challenge but those who can achieve to break free from the cycle of switching between the same 3 apps have notably live a more "Live in the moment" type of life. 

Many who suffer from stress, social anxiety and self esteem issues find themselves at major risk to getting this addiction, and considering much of the young adult population suffers from at least one of the demographics it's easy to see why they are the main topic when talking about phone usage. Putting the phone down can seem like a major challenge due to FOMO, and with Social Media platforms enabling our use of the phone by offering us notifications about things we probably shouldn't care about, such as a tweet from a person you interacted with once or a post from a person you followed 6 months ago. Clicking on notifications can be a risk since they can either be rewarding or cause the opposite effect. Can anyone fathom with the fact that we never know what we're gonna get when we click on something, and we only click on it because we HOPE its good.

https://www.londonmeetsparis.com/2019/08/19/curse-social-media-how-social-media-causes-depression-anxiety/

In conclusion, is Social Media such a bad thing if it causes us to become addicted? The answer isn't simple, but it's evident that with great power comes great responsibility, and the power to communicate with the whole world yet be so lonely on our pages can greatly emphasise our focus on being online since nobody wants to be alone. The need to be liked looms over our heads constantly, and sometimes that need is fulfilled online in ways that we might not notice due to our firm belief that we can stop being on our phones whenever we want, but deep inside we know its a bunch of rubbish.

Control over our Smartphone? And, is it Legal?

    We would hope that we would have better control over our smartphone usage right? I mean a device really should not have a huge hold over our lives as we should be able to monitor our screentime and push our notifications to the side without much thought. That just does not happen though. When you have experts in the field of psychology and business pushing the variable reward ideology onto you with posts and notifications, it becomes nearly impossible to resist the temptation to use the phone. You are probably either using it right now to read this blog or you have become so bored and done reading about how you have little control over your smartphone that you are now trying to shove as far away from you to disprove the notion that we overuse our smartphone. I get it. Consider however how often you use your phone and when you use your phone as we move forward with the blog post.

    Ok so let us back up a bit and reevaluate how you are able to see how much you use your phone. You should be able to see it in the settings or through an app. Don't be shy about it, I'll even share a snippet of my app usage below. I used an app called, App Usage - Manage/Track Usage by Sam Lu which gives a detailed view and timeline over how much you are using your phone and what you are using the phone for and for how many hours. With that said, are you surprised with your results?

Yes, I may be addicted to YouTube a little bit... (Screenshot is mine)

    Maybe you do not have nearly as many hours as I do for your phone and it is probably healthier you do not. In my defense though, I do put on YouTube videos when I am going to sleep or for background noise too! I must give credit to the book, Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi. We are currently reading her book for our social media class and taking upon her challenges with this being the first challenge (I'm not sure I can do the one that requires you to delete one of your favorite apps though). So why did you use the apps that you used? Was it truly out of necessity or did you get a notification and wanted to check out what the buzz was all about? Maybe like me you got bored and decided to start playing a mobile game again as you can see in the app that is second place to YouTube, Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle. This is an interesting game that I believe needs to be examined more because it may not be as ethical or even truly legal as it should be along with multiple other freemium games.

    The concept of freemium is simple, the base game is free, but you can purchase in-game items or currency to use for boosts, characters, cosmetics, etc. Now, I love Dokkan Battle, it is probably one of my favorite mobile games because there are actual smooth animations implemented in it and it has a plethora of Dragon Ball characters that I know and love from the show and many others spinoff series and games. It's basically the culmination of all things Dragon Ball so any fan of Dragon Ball, from the Dragon Ball to Dragon Ball Super, would more than likely take interest in this game. However, something... off lies within the start screen of our phone that makes me rethink the intentions of this app and many other freemium-style games.

Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle's start-up screen you must click through every time

  

    If the image is a bit hard to read for you, it basically states that it is a free-to-play game but that there are in-app purchases that you can make. That's all well and good until you get to the last line of the first paragraph that states "You must be 14 years of age or older to download or play". Now the reason why this should be more controversial is that this game actually has gambling as the main mechanic and it would be fairly impossible to do many of the challenges and modes without gambling for good characters unless of course, you visit a certain YouTuber's page called JPhanta that goes over how to get free units and not pay for them in the game. The temptation is there though and it is easy to get sucked into the game and then spend money on it. I remember that I told myself I would never spend money on mobile games... until I found this one. It started off with $5, then another $5, then another $5, until now where I just bought a subscription to get the in-game currency, "dragon stones". where I get 5 for 30 days. Crazy right? And I am an adult who should have better self-control! Now imagine if little Timmy got his credit card info from his parents and went wild because he was desperately trying to summon a character he really wanted. I should mention that the ranking goes from N, R, SR, SSR, UR, and LR respectively with LR being the current rarest type of cards you can get. With a multi-summon that costs 50 dragon stones for 10 units summoned, you are only guaranteed one SSR and the rest could be Rs and SRs. You can see why spending money can become addicting if you are a huge fan and really want a certain unit.

    

    After that long ramble, you may be wondering where the issue is. Well, it lies in the wording that I brought up earlier with being at least 14 years old. You cannot gamble in the U.S. at casinos until you are 18 or even in some cases at 21, yet 14-year-olds can play this game and constantly shell out money for summons and potentially never "win big" as you are not guaranteed to get the unit you want with each summons. Seems quite strange, doesn't it? That we give free passes to mobile freemium games for this but limit physical gambling extensively. This is where the idea of having a "Designer's Oath" comes from in James Williams's book, Stand out of our Light. We need to hold designers accountable for their actions and how they try to use apps to wire out brains into wanting more. If we can practically have a whole casino in our hands, then shouldn't that signify that we need designers of apps to be more ethical? That is not even addressing the whole issue of underage gambling either, which is illegal. See, we think we have freedom over our smartphone, that we can not use it ever again if we were told to do so for a reason and some of us might, but for many of us that are simply not the case. We are constantly bombarded by posts and notifications to buy this or see this and it can get overwhelming, even if we control it. There has to be a better way to go about this. We should be able to utilize our phone that we own and the apps that we chose to download and also find a way to make sure that designers of apps are mindful of who is playing their games or their apps and find better preventative measures of enticing minors to pay for purchases through what is essentially phone ads.

Bored and Unethical

 Hi everyone!!

    Today I am going to be writing about social media in regards to the way it takes away most of our time with the help of Manoush Zomordi's book "Bored and Brilliant". Also, I will be talking about Willams's Designer Code of Ethics and the way social media can be very unethical. 

    I am sure you have heard of a "social detox" before and if you haven't then you are probably very young or you have bad parents (totally kidding). A social detox simply means that you are taking a break from all social media platforms to clear your mind. Social media can be a very stressful place where you are constantly reading into other people's lives and comparing them to your own. Don't get me wrong, social media is also filled with puppies and butterflies but it honestly has become a very dark place over time. In Manoush Zomordi's book "Bored and Brilliant" she comes up with a seven step program that is basically a social detox. 

    The first challenge is "Observe Yourself", meaning you will be tracking your time spent on all of your social media platforms or apps that you use daily. It is important to realize how much time you are spending on social media because your life is much more than looking at a phone screen all day. The second challenge is "Keep Your Devices Out of Reach While in Motion" which entails no walking and texting! I like this challenge because personally I didn't know it would be so hard until I actually did it. You see a lot of people do this too because it is just a natural instinct to pull out your phone when you are casually walking - walking is just SO boring right ;). The third challenge is "Photo-Free Day", meaning that you can not post or look at photos which is honestly a majority of your social media feed. This challenge has been hard for me because that means I can't get on any social media. The fourth challenge is "Delete the App", now if you are going to do any challenge - THIS IS THE ONE. Recently I did this before reading "Bored and Brilliant" with a shopping app that I have because I have a shopping addiction (we love that!). I decided that I was not going to buy ANY Lululemon for the month of February and to do that I needed to delete the app on my phone because it was too easy for me - I also work there so I get a crazy discount which makes it super hard. It was financially the best decision I have made and so far I still have the app deleted off of my phone. The fifth challenge is "Take a Fakeaction" which would mean that you are simply not using your phone for anything other than something that is extremely important - talking to your mom doesn't count ;). The sixth challenge is "Observe Something Else", which implies that you will devote your eyes and time to other things instead of your phone or social media. Lastly, the seventh challenge is "The Bored and Brilliant Challenge" which is where you will use each of these challenges in your daily life and begin setting new goals and aspirations that don't involve staring at a tiny screen all day. 

    As technology and social media continues to develop, our use of phones will continue to grow rapidly each decade. Have you ever been talking about something to a friend and then you check instagram and there is an ad suggested just for you that is EXACTLY what you were talking about on your timeline? We wonder if that is actually a coincidence or if the government is listening to our conversations - FREAKY. I would consider this unethical because it is an invasion of someone's personal conversation and their life in general. James Williams came up with the "Designer's Oath" which is basically a code of conduct for social media. The "Designer's Oath" is promising to "Care, Understand, Align, Respect, Measure, Communicate, and Promote". Something I think Williams's could have added into the oath would be privacy, because in today's society everyone knows your business so fast, and we have social media to thank for that. Something that isn't talked about often is how on some apps or websites you MUST enter in your email and information in order to browse on the app or website, which to me is not ethical at all. This goes along with each of the challenges in "Bored and Brilliant" in a way that social media is always controlling your life. It is time to take back your power and create a life outside of social media and away from the mean, nasty, ugly Internet trolls!

    With that being said, technology and social media is evolving more and more each day. Every time we receive a text or a snapchat notification we immediately check it to see what it says or who it's from, meaning our phones are literally taking over our lives. Challenge yourself to limit the time you spend each day on social media and take CONTROL - I promise it will be the best decision for you.

Bored in the House and In the House Bored: Is Boredom Healthy?

Boredom.

The sometimes-overwhelming feeling that took over our nation when COVID hit. We couldn’t go out to see friends or family, couldn’t go to museums or movie theatres, no more concerts or live music, no more physical social interaction.

When the nation was put under lockdown during the beginning of the pandemic, the cabin fever was real. But how bored were we really? We had our phones, TV’s, and other at home activities to keep us busy, so were we really bored, or just having a hard time paying attention?

In her book, Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self, Manoush Zomorodi talks about boredom and how it may unlock a part of your brain that generates ideas.

She also offers up some challenges for her readers to try, including CHALLENGE ONE: Observe Yourself. You essentially look at your phone screen usage over a 24-hour period and take note about how often, what time, and where you use your phone.

Let’s take a step back and talk about what our brain does when we begin to fill the void of boredom we feel. We start trying to find small tasks to keep us preoccupied, and in Zomordi’s Ted Talk that you’ll find below, she explains to us that our brains enter a Default Mode.

When we go into default mode, we do something called autobiographical planning. We look at our daily challenges, make goals to accomplish them, and then start making lists to accomplish those goals! Sounds like what our brain should be doing on a regular basis, right? It’s actually becoming less common since the popularization of the handheld technology.

What we think of as “multi-tasking” is actually just switching our attention from one project to another, it’s not a constant stream of productivity so its never our best work. We get burnt out faster and have a harder time focusing on tasks, but that’s why we need boredom!

How to we reclaim our boredom?! It’s a challenge, but one easily lined up for in her book. Back to Challenge One.

I personally analyzed my own phone usage and was shocked that in a 12-hour time span, I used my phone for social media for roughly 5 hours. Not email or messaging, but Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook.

They say the first step to breaking an addiction is identifying that you have an addiction… so hi everyone, my name is Cailey, and I am a phone addict. And there is nothing wrong with identifying this issue in my life, it just gives me the opportunity to make some healthy changes.

During COVID-19, there was a huge change in the way we dealt with boredom, and it showed in our electronic usage.

Jory MacKay

In this study done by Jory MacKay, he found that our daily usage of our devices jumped 16% overall, or almost one full hour in a day. That’s one more hour of distraction.

Long story short, boredom is something many of us try to avoid, its always had a negative connotation to it. Many of us try to fill this time by distracting ourselves with our electronics by either trying to multitask or by mindlessly scrolling through different media streams.

How can we overcome this? The first step is to analyze your usage and accept the reality of where you are in terms of your usage. You also should be open to the idea of boredom being ok! It’s a gateway into mind-wandering and creativity which turns into productivity.

Slaves To The Notification

    Being an individual with ADD, life can be challenging sometimes. As someone who is distracted by the smallest things, I can tell you it is a constant burden. Always having to re-read the same things over and over again gets tedious, as I start to think about other things half way through a sentence. I'm sure getting a phone didn't help this either. Always having something to constantly distract me from reality made my ADD way worse. Now, I did not get a phone until I was in the sixth grade, and it wasn't a smart phone either. That didn't stop me from developing a need, an addiction, for notifications. You see, this is back in the day when every single app didn't bombard you with constant notifications. This was back in the day when the only notifications readily available were for messaging and missed calls. They were still awesome to receive though, because we all want to be notified that someone is giving their attention to us. Someone is making the effort to notify us that they maybe care a smidge about us. But, now that has all changed. The notification has taken a whole new course of direction.

    Picture this: It's 2030 and you are watching TV with your children (I'm not sure if we have holographic TV's yet, but it's 2030 so maybe we do). We now all have smart TV's, that send us notifications through our TV's. Constant advertisements on top of advertisements. Is that really the world we want to live in? Certainly we can shut them off, but we may be so used to them by then that it is a part of life at that point. We just learn to accept it. We don't want to miss our favorite influencer or celebrities next action. We want to constantly be updated about what is going on where. So, my question to you is: Are notifications popping up in the corners of TV's realistic? I think so. I think by the time that it is 2030 society will be so wrapped up in everything going on around them that they will need to be notified every second, no matter where they are or what they are doing. We will need to be notified about where Todd the landscaper is checking in to eat on Facebook. Notified about who is going on Instagram live for the 5th time in a day. Notified that we are indeed a slave to the notification. 

    This week we talked on a designers oath, which I believe should be implemented to stop this kind of thing from happening. Advertisers and marketers need to understand that their advertising is unethical at times. Especially with the technology we have now that allows for data to be broken down and sold from companies to advertisers, or vice versa. Advertisers and marketers are getting smarter by the second on how to keep us as slaves to the notification. They are learning how to hook us for those 6-10 seconds, and how to make an impact while doing it. The app Vine could easily be argued as a social experiment, testing the possibility of individuals making a lasting impression in 6 seconds or less. If it was even possible. The first time I ever had heard of Vine I was so confused on the concept. Who on Earth could possibly make an entertaining video in 6 seconds? I was so used to watching videos that were 1-2 minutes. Needless to say, I was wrong. The social experiment worked. People would much rather watch 6 seconds over 30-45 seconds. As we see now, the most successful people from Vine are now famous YouTubers or influencers. They know how to capture an audience and keep you hooked. If they can make a lasting impression in 6 seconds, who says they won't on a 5 minute video? I kind of went off track here, but what I'm trying to say is the attention spans of people are dropping daily because of constant bombarding from notifications.

    Do I think notifications are necessarily bad? Definitely not. I like to be notified when someone new follows me on Instagram, or when I get a Snapchat message from a friend. These notifications aren't terrible, but they are distracting. The notifs I think are useless and unnecessary are the ones where they recommend people to friend or follow, who's liking what, who's going live, who posted on their IG story, etc. Things that are pointless and no one looks at but are specifically designed to reel you back into the app. Those are the types of notifications I can live without. Maybe I just don't have enough people to care about to appreciate these notifications. Of course, you can always turn notifications off completely. This is a solution, but be prepared to be left out of the loop. Be prepared to not instantly see when someone likes your photos or direct messages you. The fear of being out of the loop has made us slaves to the notification. 

Social Culture - #FreeBritney

 Hi everyone!!!

    Today I am going to be writing about Raymond Williams ideas about dominant, emergent, residual, and archaic social culture. In today's society new trends emerge constantly, but how we develop these trends as a culture is actually very interesting to me. But before you begin reading, first ask yourself this question - "How do you think we surface new culture?"- ok now read ;)!

    Dominant culture is the most powerful culture - hints the name. In terms of social media, dominant culture can be simply described as what everyone else is doing. This type of culture also focuses a lot on individuality, when someone makes their own meme and posts it on social media - it makes them feel powerful when they get a lot of shares or likes.Let's take it back to the beginning of quarantine, which show did literally everyone and their mom watch - Tiger King. I am not going to lie, I was a little late to the game and didn't think I would enjoy the show, but that's what every meme was about on social media so I felt like I had to watch it. Dominant culture makes you feel like you're fitting into society and it makes you feel as if you are in the loop with the newest trends or news that is going on in the world.

    Emergent culture is new practices and ideas that are created by groups or individuals in society. Defining emergent in a more simple way would be - groups or individuals creating the next best thing. Emergent culture is easily made in today's society, mainly thanks to TikTok. TikTok itself just became the new best social media platform. But what is really cool about TikTok that you will hear a lot of is people saying things like - "I saw it on TikTok'' or "This is the new trend on TikTok". For some reason, this particular social media platform can convince anyone to do or believe literally anything (I do it too sometimes). Another example for emergent culture could be something like - or should I say someone like, Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber started his career very young, which entailed his swoosh haircut and his baby voice. But over the past decade, Justin has still found a way to keep his fans close with making new music and a new brand for himself. 

    Residual culture is merely the influence of old cultural practices. This type of social culture is actually built from the dominant culture. In other words, residual culture is usually something out of style but will find a way to come back. An example of residual culture that I have seen recently would be yoga pants. Whenever I was in middle school you were only cool if you had THE Victoria Secret PINK yoga pants. These pants were not the same as your average pair of leggings you see today, since they would be what you would call a "straight leg" pair of leggings. So the other day when I was on TikTok, I saw a girl who probably looked the age of 13 - and she called these leggings "the new flared leggings" (my mind was blown). This trend was obviously not new to me, but very new to her. I wasn't in shock that this style came back, but I was very concerned when they were trending on social media as "flared leggings"(LOL). With that being said, I would say residual culture plays a HUGE role in shaping today's society. 

    Lastly, archaic culture is pretty much exactly what it sounds like - the most outdated cultural practice. This type of social culture is literally so old that no one cares one bit. An example of archaic culture in regards to social media would probably be flip phones. In today's society if you have a flip phone, you would be considered an ancient dinosaur. Flip phones were super dope whenever I was a kid, and let's be honest the Razor's were the COOLEST. But sadly if you walk around with a pink Razor in today's time you might get called a loser since you don't have a smartphone. Old news would also be considered as archaic - someone like Britney Spears. For the longest time no one ever talked about Britney Spears or knew where she was (I actually thought she died), but now she is low-key making a come back within society with her new documentary #SaveBritney. 

     Each of these different types of social culture play a really big role in society. With that being said, the social media aspect of culture is just as important as the people who start new trends. Everyone has the ability to choose whether or not they are going to follow and be involved in social trends. Even though it is really about the type of social culture itself, we as the public are the ones who will make culture dominant, emergent, residual, or archaic.