My easiest friend messaged me on Facebook Messenger. It wasn’t pressing, so I swiped the notification away, making a psychological characterize to acknowledge later. Ten minutes later, Facebook sends one other notification. “Reminder: [My friend] despatched you a message.” Here's clingy, even for Facebook. And it’s no longer the suitable app extra and extra desperate for any crumb of attention.
In appropriate the final couple months, I’ve for my fragment gotten dozens of what I'm in a position to most attention-grabbing call desperation notifications. Push signals from apps that don’t in actual fact need one thing else, but would truly be pleased it if I gave them some attention anyway. These encompass, but are no longer nearly restricted to, the following:
The Disney+ app let me know that on fable of I watched The Simpsons, I could well be drawn to watching The Simpsons Film (which I also currently watched).
Discord knowledgeable me that anyone in a server I'm also in updated their put, which is, I wager, a thing you can attain in Discord.
Venmo would be pleased me to know I'm in a position to fund my Kalshi fable with my Venmo balance. (I attain no longer and ought to quiet never non-public a Kalshi fable.)
Reddit began sending push signals for recordsdata tales from communities I wasn’t subscribed to and had never visited.
Duet despatched an aggressive half of-dozen notifications internal quarter-hour of closing the app, including a pair of signals that be taught “She appropriate likes you.” Which is a surprisingly mad tone for a relationship app.
GrubHub asked me if I desired to expose food, precisely five minutes after I ordered food.
A majority of these are obviously appropriate ads disguised as signals—its obtain tense discipline—but appropriate as many look like diminutive better than a reminder that an app exists. And while you can well please initiate the app and boost its engagement numbers, that is at probability of be gargantuan.
Are app notifications truly getting worse?
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While it’s persistently tough to quantify vibes-essentially based mostly annoyances, there’s on the least some recordsdata to help up the idea that firms are getting extra and extra wanting to your notification attention. In line with a 2025 prognosis from the Reuters Institute for the Survey of Journalism, recordsdata publishers non-public extra and extra relied on push notifications to reach their audiences, as a device to handbook determined of relying too vital on platforms be pleased Google or social media apps.
Then all all over again, this allege for say attention comes at a tag—and within the course of an arms gallop with platforms. In line with the Reuters insist, 79% of respondents don’t accumulate any recordsdata signals at all, and 43% of those are on fable of customers actively disabled the notifications. Worse yet, iOS and Android non-public each experimented with questionably legitimate AI summaries of notifications, making them even extra tense to address.
This insist most attention-grabbing examines one tiny segment of the notifications you can well sift thru on any given day, but it’s instructive of a broader pattern. We extra and extra live in an attention economy, the put apparently unrelated industries are in competition to your eyeballs. Which is how you stop up with firms be pleased Netflix investing in video games, or the video game industry competing with playing websites and porn.
In that context, your notifications change into the frontline within the fight to your attention. No, it doesn’t rob a genius to know that anyone who watched The Simpsons could well be drawn to watching The Simpsons. Nonetheless if a short notification can rob me help to the real fact to witness extra of the characterize this day, somewhat than play extra Pathologic 3, that’s a gather for Disney.
And any gather goes to be price it to most firms wonderful now. Broadly talking, the economy isn’t doing so hot. So, if an organization can attain one thing to characterize that engagement in their app went up by even 5%, they most likely will. And sending extra notifications is on the total even handed one of many cheaper and more uncomplicated ways to juice internal numbers.
decrease app notification spam
Credit: Lifehacker
There’s on the least one silver lining to the total notification arms gallop discipline: There are a lot of tools available to help accumulate your signals below management. Some are baked wonderful into your phone’s OS, but there are also third-celebration tools you can consume to put in power some peace and quiet. Listed here are one of the most most easy alternatives available.
Exhaust your phone’s OS-level settings to administer notifications
Both basic smartphone platforms non-public dazzling sturdy tools to dictate what extra or less signals you can obtain, and the plot in which disruptive they're normally. We non-public fleshy guides on tools for managing your Android and iOS notifications, but even while you don’t are making an try to dive too deep into your phone’s settings, you can slowly whittle away the most tense signals as you obtain them.
On Android, you can prolonged-press a notification for your color to search out alternatives to tweak or suppress the signals. Most notifications could well be sorted into both Priority, Default, or Silent, which behave otherwise reckoning for your default settings. You would moreover faucet the Settings tools icon to dive into the app’s particular notification settings to disable categories of signals. These will fluctuate by app, but in many cases you can disable issues be pleased ads or recordsdata signals with out turning off messages you undoubtedly care about.
On iOS, you can gather the same tools by swiping on a notification and tapping Alternatives. Here, you’ll gather mercurial shortcuts to attain issues be pleased peaceful notifications from an app for a short period of time, or leap to extra in-depth settings to disable categories of notifications. In my experience, it’s normally more uncomplicated to tweak these settings whenever I obtain an awfully tense alert, somewhat than audit all my notification settings correct now.
Explore every app’s notification settings
Most apps non-public their obtain category of notification settings that could well be adjusted in my conception. In some cases, these can overlap with the identical settings you’ll gather the usage of the above methodology, but appropriate as normally, you’ll gather vital extra toggles that don’t. Though, some apps are shadier than others in phrases of how easy it is to search out these settings.
For one instructive instance, within the Reddit app, you can navigate to Settings > Legend Settings > Prepare notifications to search out a prolonged list of which you can factor in signals you can obtain. That’s already dazzling buried, but while you keep into the app with a pair of accounts, you’ll must buckle down and do that direction of for every fable you’re signed into. Otherwise, notifications you turned off for one fable could well quiet pop up by plot of 1 other.
Most apps aren’t quite this chaotic, but it'll quiet be tense to dig thru the total unhurried menus. In some cases, this could well also be your most attention-grabbing probability, though. On Android, Reddit most attention-grabbing has one notification category the usage of the old methodology, that methodology you can most attention-grabbing flip all notifications on or off correct now. So, while you’re no longer finding the tools you ought to selectively peaceful definite signals within the OS-level settings, it'll be price digging thru the app’s menus.
When all else fails, consume third-celebration tools
It shouldn’t truly be mandatory to install an app appropriate to accumulate diverse apps to shut up, but if we must, then we must. BuzzKill, for Android, is a easy $4 app that offers you further sturdy tools to filter, dwelling up, or suppress notifications than any of the built-in notification management settings.
What sets BuzzKill aside is that, on top of filtering notifications by which app is sending them, it could well moreover filter signals by issues be pleased words they relish, whether they've an image linked, or whether they’re segment of a group chat. So, while you ought to handle getting recordsdata signals, but you’re appropriate sick of listening to about that one man who’s persistently within the headlines for some motive, you can selectively filter those out.
Unfortunately, this one’s at probability of stop Android most attention-grabbing, as iOS normally retains apps in tighter sandboxes. BuzzKill wants in advise to be taught notifications from diverse apps in present to filter them, and that’s no longer one thing iOS normally permits apps to attain. So, while you’re within the Apple ecosystem, you’ll must stick to built-in tools for now.
More broadly, it could’t damage to let app builders know while you’re pissed off by their incessant pings. Companies could well try to rob their engagement by checking out how vital they can high-tail your attention span earlier than you flip them off (or uninstall the app) fully. Nonetheless turning off pointless signals can ship a keep that they’ve gone too a ways within the rotten direction. Sending feedback experiences, the put which you can factor in, can per chance ship an even stronger keep.
