✖ disabling my social media notifications

✖ disabling my social media notifications

• Sunday 2 June 2019

I recently went and disabled my Facebook notifications. After a week, I moved on to disabling Twitter notifications and by today I've basically disabled every single app sending me notifications. What did I notice, and how did I cope? What about FOMO and all that shit, that seems to be a thing now?

We're living in an era where huge parts of our lives are controlled over by social media. Which is pretty ironic for me disabling all the notifications, considering that I'm studying to become an expert on the area. But while we are out our smartphones glued to our hands, every single red tiny ball popping around our app icons and constantly checking up if there would be a notification implying that someone has been missing us, is that life we want to live?

I'd be lying if I say I didn't take a small break here to check up a few Instagram stories in the middle of the process of writing this one out.

Guys, we have an addict here.

Here are some things that will happen when you disable the notifications from your social media apps.

✖ you will use social media a lot less
Obviously. DUH, Jasmin, why did you mention the obvious? Well, because it's not that obvious. If you check the stats from your smartphone, the ones that let you know how much time you spend daily on your phone and in which apps, you'd faint. It's said that we Millenials spend around 8 hours a day on our smartphones. It's a full day at work, how on Earth do we have the time for that? Oh right, we use our smartphones at work too. It's become something such a usual thing to do, that it's more unusual if you forget your phone home. Forgetting your phone home in 2019 feels like you've left your apartment forgetting to wear your pants.

But how does disabling the notifications help you to spend less time in social media? Because there isn't really anything drawing you towards the app. Do you know why notification bubble on top of the app is red? It used to be blue (at least on Facebook).
They did a study a while back, resulting in a massive increase in clicks when the notification bubble was turned red. So while red is a colour for multiple things, it's also a colour to increase the interest towards something.

When you haven't got any notifications, you have no actual interest in the app whatsoever.

Forgetting your phone home in 2019 feels like you've left your apartment forgetting your pants. It leaves you feeling naked, vulnerable and uncomfortable.

✖ you will realise that FOMO isn't a thing
FOMO, also known as the "fear of missing out" has become something that has been hyped around for a while now. And yes, I'm here to put an end to that, as I really don't believe it exists.
Of course, when you see your friends going out, doing things, hyping up their lives on social media, other people succeeding in things they're good at; it makes you feel disappointed.

Why you don't get to do that stuff? Why you don't succeed in life as well as others? You start feeling jealous about it. You feel like you are missing out on the cool things. And when you get caught up in that feeling, you crave it more in some weird masochistic way that you actually start fearing that you will miss out on something that you're not a part of.

And that's how we get addicted, and afraid of missing out on something we think we are interested in. Even though we just want to feed that comparing little house elf that is living inside all of us.

How to get rid of the inner house elf? Disable notifications, forget your apps, never fear of missing out on something again. How can you get FOMO, when you don't know what you're missing?

✖ you will gain the control of your own life back
The question is, are you doing all that because you want to or because it would look amazing on social media? You might choose a cafe or a restaurant you really can't afford, but because it would fit amazingly on your Instagram feed. You might choose to take a picture of a car crash scene and share it to Facebook in hope for reactions, instead of stopping by and helping out. Or moving away to let the rescue workers do their jobs. You might choose to copy-paste a viral tweet on Twitter, in hope for it to go viral too, just for a few red bubbles on your social media icon.

Would you really do all that stuff, if social media wasn't having control over you? Would you?

You might choose to take a picture of a car crash scene and share it to Facebook in hope for reactions, instead of stopping by and helping out.

✖ you will feel happier
Being happy is a tricky little thing. It's also a journey, not the destination, as they keep telling all of us in a seek for it. The thing is, I haven't found my happiness yet and I don't think that's even the point in all this disabling the notifications nonsense.

The point is, after disabling my notifications I haven't been spending my days mindlessly scrolling through different apps. After disabling my notifications, I haven't felt the fear of missing out on something. I have felt more content in the life I've been living. I've been more present for the people I hang out with on a daily basis.

And I think you should disable your notifications too. Not to feel happier, but to falling back on being in your life.