Hacker News Reader

Comment by avindroth | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if this is possible, but I would love this as a layer above existing messaging platforms.

For instance, I just want my iPhone to batch my notifications until a certain time, without me having to worry about becoming distracted.

I want just 20-30 minutes of unhindered communication (real-time as well), and then go back to the batch-mode.

I am currently doing this with "Cellular Data Off", but it's a bit annoying when I want to listen to music without being distracted. I want the data, but not the notifications. Right now, as a time-consuming hack, I manually turn off all messaging notifications.

A very important aspect of life, and a step in the right direction. But does not seem like a worthy replacement just yet.

View on HN

One thing I do with my iPhone that helps is turning off lock screen display for the most distracting notifications.

iOS will then batch these notifications and show them when you unlock your phone next. It's not perfect, but it prevents stuff like a Snapchat or a Twitter @mention from totally distracting me while I'm at my desk.

Those types of notifications should be disabled entirely IMO. I don't think people realize how stressful those notifications are relative to their actual value.

I unfollowed everyone on Facebook so I don't have a news feed. I am detached from news. Focusing on my work and local family and community seems far healthier. I've realized that worrying about everything going on in the world, including trivial details about my acquaintances, is a recipe for disaster.

> I am detached from news

You are..here. You mean you are detached from the BS of your friends? That sounds a lot more reasonable.

No, I mean I'm not letting news affect my mood unless it is truly significant. I still check the news (trying to reduce) but not getting worked up about things as much.

I did the same, basically, by quitting Facebook. Technically, I didn't quit it, just deleted the app from my phone. I was a daily poster and habitual feed browser and commenter but I stopped cold-turkey. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to do it but I did and it turned out so much better than expected. Stress level is way down. Way less desire to live up to unrealistic, self-imposed expectations. When I check it from my laptop every few days, it feels incredibly hollow and I usually just close the window after reading a few stories.

One funny habit I retained is taking lots of photos throughout the day--they just stay there in my camera roll now.

I love messengers to keep in touch, but that's just about the only notification I will get.

Facebook is fantastic for keeping up with people's personal details and messaging friends boh old and new. But having the newsfeed be forcefed down your fucking throat is the worst.

The newsfeed is like emotional garbage straight down the esophagus. It doesn't feel too pretty.

So Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator did wonders for me! All the good parts of Facebook, without the shit. It's glorious.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...

That's why I unfollowed rather than deactivating. I still like using Facebook as a register of contacts with easy messaging. If I think about someone I'll look up their profile to see what they're up to. I'd use Eradicator but I need something that blocks it on mobile too.

Right. I get distracted from time to time on my phone. Maybe I will follow your method!

> I unfollowed everyone on Facebook so I don't have a news feed

I did the same and it was unbelievably helpful. Local news went long before that. Some of the worst kind of stress, IMO, is seeing horrible things go by that you're powerless to change.

> For instance, I just want my iPhone to batch my notifications until a certain time, without me having to worry about becoming distracted.

This is fairly easy:

Go into Settings -> Notifications, click the apps you want, and disable "Show on Lock Screen" and "Sounds" but leave "Show in Notification Center" enabled. Then you can just check them at your leisure.

You could also set the "Alert Style When Unlocked" to None.

This may be tedious if you want to do this for a large number of apps. In that case, as others have suggested, just enable the blanket Do Not Disturb, scheduling it for a specific time if needed.

Should just turn on "do not disturb" and set it up to let important people's phone numbers through to you.

True, or work out a DND schedule, so that notifs get to you only on certain periods of time. Thing is, this won't "batch" the notifications, it will just shut them up for the period where you're in DND mode, you'll need to check notifications center afterwards or go through all the badged apps to figure out what happened in the meantime.

This is key for me.

I'm already maxed out in how many various messaging services I'm willing to subscribe to.

I buckled and got Slack recently because of a couple of local communities who were using it as their only means of communication. Turns out to be great, and has the wonderful feature of no interrupting notifications unless someone specifically messages me, so I can take part in group conversations with 100+ people involved and only look at them a few times a day.

But installing Slack was effectively the last straw that made me give up on using Pidgin, so I've cut off IM access from friends who only have me on older IM networks.

So what would possibly motivate me to jump to another messenger app that currently none of the people who I know are even on? I'm still resisting installing Facebook Messenger on my phone since I don't want Yet Another Messaging App. At least Facebook Messenger would have people on it I know; Formal would require that I bother people even more by making them install a new app.

Why not use Do Not Disturb mode?

This would do so much damage to Facebook. I keep my phone notifications off — no buzzing or ringing. My smartwatch buzzes for phone calls and text (ok, signal) messages, and that's it. When I have a moment in line, or on the toilet or whatever, THEN I check my notifications. it's wonderful... but my Facebook usage practically disappeared. I had no idea just how much of their usage came from immediacy effects.

In Android, you can disable App notifications. That may accomplish what you're looking for.

There's also Do Not Disturb mode which turns all notifications, but also all phone calls, off for an adjustable amount of time.

You can do that on iOS also. It's pretty fine-grained. The settings range from "no activity" (useful for Facebook) to "icon badge only" to notifications to "show a modal notification" (useful for my-flight-is-leaving-now airline apps)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com