In the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) world, there's one metric that is practically worshipped: usage. Most tech companies have SaaS products, like Photoshop or even ChatGPT. These products often track every action you take while using it: logged in at 6:51, clicked main button, etc. Even when tracking the fewest amount of actions, like only recording how often you log in, that data builds up the product's usage metric.
If people are using your product, it must be a good product. That's the theory, anyway.
That also creates a game to try and constantly increase those numbers. If people only use it once a week, how can we get them to use it daily? Once they're hooked daily, can we get them to use it every hour?
Not every product has the addictive power of something like social media (who logs into their project management system when they have some down time?) so they may use other tactics to get you back on the platform. Ever gotten a notification on your phone saying, "Your friend, Jess, is back on Marco Polo"? Or "Check out your Spotify Wrapped"?
Sophisticated products are programmed to notice that you haven’t logged in for a while, then send you these messages on your phone. These little intrusions are designed to get you back on the app.
Social platforms like Facebook or even Marco Polo are able to leverage our social psychology to draw us in. Using a name of a friend or even a name that is familiar to us in the context of an app piques our interest, because we are naturally curious about our friends and will want to see what they're doing. Sometimes it happens to be that person you were thinking about reconnecting with, using coincidence (a.k.a. an algorithm's best guess) to increase the gravitational pull to the program. I also wouldn't be surprised if there was a tiny boost of confidence in the app: your friend is using this app, it must be worthwhile—classic social marketing.
The Irony
All tech companies know about notifications. All of them try to find ways to send notifications. Not all have access to your phone, but perhaps they have your email, or a desktop notification permission, or they may settle for notifications within the app itself. We also know that everyone else knows about notifications, meaning that we need to find ways to notify customers/clients amidst the noise of all of the other notifications.
The individual person tends to be averse to the inundation of notifications; quickly swiping them away without reading. Sometimes that's actually a bad thing—ever accidentally dismiss an error notification with important instructions? Anyone? Just me? It really isn't in our best interest as users to develop a notification blindness similar to advertising blindness, which is why generally speaking, tech companies try to be judicious in the amount of notifications they send out (social media is seemingly the greatest exception).
There's an artificial conflict created in the midst of all of this noise. We have large entities (the companies) smothering individuals (like you and me) with notifications. Two teams, essentially. One stands to benefit from the notifications exponentially more than the other.
Funny enough, tech companies sometimes try to create a solution for the mass of notifications we encounter—a solution to a problem they created...snake oil, say what?
Just a few months ago, the BBC published an article revealing a massive issue with Apple's AI-powered summarization. Apple was trying to be helpful in reducing the amount of notifications by grouping them together and using AI to provide summaries—because we just love summaries. Unfortunately, the AI got some things wrong, like saying that the man arrested for murdering the UHC CEO had died by suicide, which didn't happen.
AI's hallucinations are not only bad for the brand of the BBC as they've argued—their reputation is vital to being positioned as a rigorous source of reliable reporting—it's also bad for the people who see fake headlines and have no reason to suspect them of being false. Bad enough that some news or other platforms use fake headlines on purpose, when a trustworthy source is made to look like the bottom-of-the-barrel platforms, it can be destructive.
Cyborg
While our smart phones have undoubtedly been useful pocket-sized computers, they've also become our primary notification center. You've likely got your email(s) linked up, plus all of the apps you've installed, all in addition to the texts and calls. Each account or app adding more and more of those little icons or bubbles with numbers that you can only clear by reading or engaging.
In an attempt to reduce stress, I aggressively removed the types of notifications I was getting on my phone. Facebook was the worst offender, so I tried to give it the fewest possible permissions. The first month or so was absolute bliss.
Then I watched things shift.
I don't know if it's coincidence—perhaps Facebook was updating this notification behavior at the same time—or if it's designed to do this, but the notifications started rolling back en masse. Somehow they're using the permissions they do have to game me—almost like they're taking the category of the allowed notification and stretching it as far as possible to find a message that kinda fits.
Knowing this, I can clarify a statement I made above. This isn't a game between the two teams: company vs individuals. It's a game the company plays, using us as the pieces.
The hardest part about notifications is that sometimes they are really helpful, and even necessary. We get the illusion that some companies are aware of this and are trying to help by splitting out types of notifications that you can toggle on or off. This still allows for "interpretation" on the part of the app or company, as Facebook seems to have done to me.
There's no great answer to this, although awareness of this problem can help "debug" other problems we may have on our minds. There's decent evidence that notifications or any other disruptive communication can increase our stress and even the pressure we feel. The study referenced focuses on the workplace, but I've seen these constant streams of beeps and blinks add to my sense of overwhelm.
Instead of giving random companies permission to have constant, open, one-way communication lines directly to me, I want to engage with them on my terms. I will decide to open that app or use that product when I need to, not when they need me to.
Drawing boundaries is a skill in developing healthy relationships with people—why not with technology? I'm going to take a moment right now to audit the notifications I allow on my phone—feel free to join me!