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>> ...no calls...

You must not have kids / spouse then. You can get a call from school / daycare any time that your kid is sick or hurt and needs to be picked up immediately. Or your spouse can call you that their car broke down and (s)he needs help. I want to be notified immediately of such situations.

That's a good point, I make an exception only for calls, and only if they are in my contacts (school etc. are in my contacts), but I leave all other notifications always off on all my devices.

PS at least where I leave (Australia) allowing all calls including numbers not in my contacts, would mean receiving several spam calls every week, so I gave up on that.

Several spam calls per day here, also Australia.

Several a day here too, USA

Do you not have something similar to Truecaller to block all the spam?

I get one generic spam phone call every month or two. My phone number has historically been on whois records for a couple of domain names, so I sometimes get related spam (your website is broken, you want to pay us to make another, right?), largely from only one or two entities despite being asked to stop it and being reminded that they’re breaking the law (I’m on the Do Not Call Register, have been as long as I’ve had the number, over 7 years), almost always from 07 or 08 phone numbers, but just occasionally from 02 or 03 (just a couple of days ago I got two in one day from the same company, even the same person I think, once 07 and once 03). I don’t know if I’ve ever received a legitimate call from outside 03 (Victoria, where I live) or 04 (mobile). Since I started using it for business as well, I’ve got a very small number of other calls as well (maybe three or four in a year).

My phone number can be trivially found, if someone wants to target me, in all its 2¹⁵‐suffix glory. My only defence is presence on the Do Not Call Register. If you’re not on it, try it. (I don’t really understand, from a serving-the-people perspective, why they don’t just abolish it and apply it to everyone—I can’t think of any reason why anyone would consciously choose not to be on it.)

Thank you, I wasn't aware that there was a Do Not Call Register, I'm registering my number right now. I too have noticed that spammers prefer 07 or 08 (I'm in NSW so legitimate calls are usually from 02). I hope this will work as well for me as it did in your case!

Here in Europe, I have 2-3 spam calls in year. I always asks where did they find my number and then ask politely if they know something about GDPR. Usually they don't waste my time anymore and hang up.

Several calls per day on Brazil but I kind don't notice it because Google app is super effective at blocking spam. Here we can't even talk to someone most of the times because those dirty spammers calls many numbers at the same time, transfer to whoever answer first and terminate the other calls with zero explanation.

You can set contacts and emergency numbers to bypass DND.

I always have do not disturb on but I add my family, friends and certain coworkers to my favorites list. There’s a setting that allows contacts in your favorites to bypass do not disturb. Calls always come through.

> Once you've tried it, you'll never go back.

Whenever I try this, I keep checking if something is waiting for me. For me, it is not as simple as turning off notifications. I also need to train my brain to stop thinking about new messages and that is turning out to be harder than I thought.

Old habits die hard but they do die. Try keeping your phone out of sight and out of reach for a while.

i keep it in a different room.

i've become accustomed to not checking it.

All of my daily 2fa auth happens through my phone. :'(

Yes, this is infuriating. For the most part I've got 2fa set up to go to a Google Voice number or an email address because of this, but there are random exceptions.

Get a dumb phone and see how magical pre-smartphone era was.

Which one? KaiOS is another google data mining OS. Other OS's on dumbphones are useless. You can't even save notes and sync with cloud (DAVx) or use synced calendar. Which is crucial for my work.

Same for me. But I end up never getting a call and needing to check cellphone every 5 mins. What is working great for me now is to turn off everything and just leave calls on loud (like phone was originally designed)

Yup that's a good solution. I want to make sure the wife can reach me or my kid's school or other parents when my kid is at a friend' place.

But I hate notifications with a passion.

Now I have a landline phone again (it came for free with the fiber optic plan / router so why not), so most of the time people can reach me there too.

If only I could...

Unfortunately, it's a device for work, and I need to be able to respond to calls and texts from people that are not in my contact list, even outside working hours.

I don't have any apps producing alerts other than messaging, calls, email, and calendar, but Monday I got twelve texts from seven different people in less than five minutes. All needed responses within five to ten minutes.

I could ditch it, but then I'd have to carry a pager.

I only have WhatsApp notifications enabled and only for specific people. Phone doesn't make noise or vibrate ever, I only see messages when I pick it up.

> I go home and visit my parents and their devices are beeping and buzzing and vibrating every 5 seconds or so.

I know exactly what you mean. I even tried to get them to disable that noise but it turned out they wanted to be notified. I will never understand it.

> Do Not Disturb mode. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No notifications, no texts, no calls, nothing at all begging for my attention.

What do you actually do during the day, that warrants such a brain-in-a-jar lifestyle with no need to interact with other people?

There are other ways to interact with people than through texts or calls. Besides, GP did not say that he doesn't text or do calls he just said that they aren't begging for his attention.

You can interact with people in ways other than the immediate interruption that come from phone notifications. Asynchronous communication (answering E-mails, texts, voice messages) can happen on your own schedule when it's least disruptive. You can do it as frequently as you want, too, if responsiveness is important. The point is that you are in control of when that interaction happens, not the device.

I'm reminded of the band Kraftwerk's strategy for dealing with interruptions, from their Wiki page[1]:

"... anyone trying to contact the band for collaboration would be told the studio telephone did not have a ringer since, while recording, the band did not like to hear any kind of noise pollution. Instead, callers were instructed to phone the studio precisely at a certain time, whereupon the phone would be answered by Ralf Hütter, despite never hearing the phone ring."

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk

How does not liking notifications and engaging with messengers, social networks and other sources of high-volume input translate to not interacting with other people? There's still, you know, real life?!

So you never talk with your friends when they're not physically close to you?

Why wouldn't I? We talk on the phone, sometimes have video calls (usually in groups) and occasionally use SMS as a fallback if a call is not an option. E-Mail is also sometimes involved if it's a more in-depth exchange or something involving E-Mail anyway (booking confirmations and the like).

edit after re-reading: I didn't mean to make my original comment sound like there is only real life. Just that not liking and not engaging with more or less continuous modes of communication and notifications does not equal not interacting with people.

This is telling. A generation has had interruptions so normalised, that for them it's a given that you're interrupted as part of interactions with other people.

Were you to _call_ them on their phones though, they'd stare in horror at the device, wondering who could be so mentally deranged. The irony makes me smile :)

A call requires immediate attention, which is not always possible and often unnecessary. A notification lets you know that there is something to check out, but you can choose when to check it out.

That's fair, though I think what most of us are talking about is the interruption itself.

I'm probably one of the oldest people on here. Certainly I'm far older than the "kids these days with their beeping pinging phones, how can they stand it" demographic.

>> A generation has had interruptions so normalised

When I was growing up, the phone would ring and you would answer it without knowing who it was because people didn't have answering machines or caller ID. Interruptions were much more intrusive then.

I know a friend who had "speaking hours" where he'd respond quickly to messages, outside of that, writing to him over email/IM was asynchronous.

OP can also schedule time (and place?) to chat to others.

What do you think people did before smartphones, or even before the internet? It wasn't that long ago, you could ask someone. You know, in person.

We had these things called "phones", which were attached to the wall with a bit of wire, and made a loud chiming sound when someone wanted to talk to you. They didn't have a "Do Not Disturb" mode as such, but typically if you wanted to use it to talk to someone you would do so if it was important.

People spent significant periods of time away from phones, and those calling did not have strong expectations of being answered right away.

I follow a slightly relaxed version of yours.

- One social media app: Reddit

- One chat/call app: Signal.

- Notifications for every app, except Signal, are disabled

- Do Not Disturb from 7PM-8AM with one exception: my wife's phone number

This looks too much for me. Your parents can't reach you on phone.

On my wife's iPhone, they have groups that allow _certain people_ to contact them with _everything else_ being disabled. I would assume there's similar settings across devices.

I have been using similar settings on a Pixel 3 (Android 12). I'm not sure if it's provided by the OS or Google's dialer app though.

Yes, it’s on iPhone, you can filter by contact type or what you’re doing:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212608

https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/26/20883331/iphone-do-not-di...

iPhones have a "Silence Unknown Callers" feature now which sends anyone not in contacts straight to voicemail. It's also a bit smarter so if you call someone it will allow them to call back even if they aren't in your contacts list.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099

called "starred contacts" on Android.

Concept old as dirt, everyone should use.

There are very easy to setup rules on Android to let specific selected contacts through DND mode. I assume apple has this too.

Ok so your parents can’t reach you. They can leave a message.