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Comment by tgb | Hacker News Reader

Actual question: what's the point of Messenger if you don't have notifications enabled?

To communicate with other people on my terms, when I want to communicate.

It's the same reason there are only a few phone numbers that can actually make my phone ring (my wife, the school my children attend, and pager duty (:P))

My device exists for my convenience.

You can also make only some email messages cause notifications.

Not sure if there's a better way for gmail, but the way I did it was to have a second gmail account, then create filters that send only important messages to that account. Then in the gmail app you can control notifications on a per-account level.

If I remember correctly how I did this years ago, I made filters to label important messages with correct label and chose different notification (sounds at least) for those labels in gmail app.

>there are only a few phone numbers that can actually make my phone ring

Could you describe briefly how to configure that state of affairs? What OS do you use?

Android 7 (lineage/cyanogen at least) can do this.

Settings>Sound>Do Not Disturb>Priority only allows

You can limit notifications to starred contacts only for calls and also SMS, and then only star the contacts you want to allow.

In Android Do Not Disturb mode can do this. You can set it to "priority only" and define who is the priority contacts. iOS should have a similar function.

Poor man's version of this: set your ringtone to a silent MP3, then apply custom tones to those people you actually want to hear.

You put iOS in DND mode and whitelist VIPs by starring them or putting them in a contact group.

It's useful to be able to communicate with people in situations where message notifications are awkward or prohibited. (ie work)

My wife exclusively uses messenger for buying and selling stuff on Facebook. She doesn't need nor want notifications.

There's also the creepy factor. I assume if there is any kind of exploit or corner case that allows an app to abuse privilege on iOS, Facebook is scummy enough to always ship it.

In my experience, since Messenger / Hangouts / etc all support persisted, named chats, people start treating them like chatrooms rather than like text messages. I don't want notifications for a chat room (where there's a flurry of conversation that may or may not be directed at me), and in general since I work remote I try to keep the "things that make my phone buzz" list to the bare-minimum, since that list will always include "production outage" which might make me stop mid-step while heading to lunch and turn back around.

Additionally, FB messenger does not allow you to disable "read receipts," it always shows the other party when you have opened a message. Buzzing my pocket and then telling the other person I read their message feels very intrusive to me.

It's equivalent to email, but more convenient if you only know the people through facebook. E.g. I admin a facebook group, so admins have a chat to discuss group-related things.

If I don't have notifications enabled it's because I don't want to be distracted. I check my phone often enough, I don't need to immediately stop what I'm doing to read a message.

Equally. When I send a message to someone, I don't want to distract them either. Of course there's no sophistication (e.g. busy mode, notify for messages flagged urgent only) because facebook wants people to drop whatever they're doing and use facebook instead.

I have all notifications for facebook turned off and just leave messanger untouched. It doesn't nag you unless someone messages you.

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