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I recently read an interesting article on push notifications, which points out the problem isn’t the phone itself but the way we’re using it:

Smartphones aren’t the problem. It’s all the buzzing and dinging, endlessly calling for your attention. A Deloitte study in 2016 found that people look at their phones 47 times a day on average; for young people, more like 82. Apple proudly announced in 2013 that 7.4 trillion push notifications had been pushed through its servers. The intervening four years have not reversed the trend.

I only have a handful of notifications turned on with my phone.  I have an alarm that goes off on the hour because I’m giving myself inner peace by taking thirty seconds to wish happiness to someone in the universe.  (Yes, I’m still doing that.)  I get calendar alerts 15 minutes before a meeting begins.  I get notifications if someone makes a video call or sends a text message or messages me on Slack.

That’s it.  I always hit reject when a new app tells me that they’d like permission to push notifications.  I assumed most people did that, too.  Now I’m not sure.  7.4 trillion push notifications sounds like a lot of notifications.

The article goes on to point out that push notifications are not usually for the user’s benefit:

They’re for brands and developers, methods by which thirsty growth hackers can grab your attention anytime they want. Allowing an app to send you push notifications is like allowing a store clerk to grab you by the ear and drag you into their store. You’re letting someone insert a commercial into your life anytime they want.

I look at most push notifications as the digital equivalent of a phone solicitor or junk mail, both also unwelcome intrusions.  The flip side is that I never know when things are going on.  My phone doesn’t tell me things.  I have to seek the information if I want it, and I don’t always know that there’s something to seek.

But the article is a very interesting read about the history of notifications, and it will make you think twice about the ones you keep on.  I ended up turning off one extra notification by the end of the article.

Do you receive a lot of notifications on your phone, or are you down to a select few?

This is a really gross story.  You have been forewarned.

I was at my cousin’s house — she lives somewhat back from the main road on a huge plot of land — talking with one of her friends.  The friend pointed out that other people would be arriving soon, and when they did, we would have to back out of the driveway to leave.  My cousin’s driveway is steep and winding, and it’s hard to drive up going forward much less backwards.  The friend said she was going to move her car so it was parked facing out.  That way, she could pull out forward when she went to leave.  Great idea.

I went outside to move my car first, but when I turned on the ignition, the whole car started to rattle.  I immediately turned it off and sat there for a moment, confused.  I had just driven back from the beach the day before and everything was fine.  I had driven to her house that day and the car had been fine.  I turned it on again and it continued to shake, though there were no emergency lights on the dashboard.  I tried putting it in reverse and the car moved without trouble, though the horrible rattling sound continued.  I turned the car around and then turned it off.

I went into the house to grab a second brain, and we started inspecting the car.  We popped the hood and let the engine run.  Everything looked fine.  We checked the oil.  That was fine(ish).  A little low, but not enough to cause problems.  At this point, there was also an odd smell in the car, like wet dog, and my cousin’s husband told me it was freon escaping.  The problem was with the air conditioner.  We turned off the air conditioner and the noise continued.  But when we turned off the fan, the noise stopped.  Problem solved — something was wrong with the fan.

I drove home on back roads with the windows down and the fan off.  The car was fine.

The next day I took it to the shop so the fan could be repaired, and it turned out to be trickier than our mechanic thought.  He suggested we take it to the dealer.  So we moved the car to the dealer, who took some time to take apart the car and look at the fan.

WHERE HE FOUND A CHOPPED UP RAT!

Or mouse.  I refused to look at the photos he sent, and Josh couldn’t tell scale.

It had crawled into the fan while I was parked at her house.  If I hadn’t moved my car at that moment, it likely would have crawled out and I would have never known.  But I did turn my car on at that moment, therefore I killed the rat-mouse.  I alternated between saying, “I am so grossed out” and “I am a rat-mouse killer.”

The rat-mouse’s blood was splattered across the entire inner workings of the car, which meant an insurance claim, some new parts, and a rental vehicle for the next two weeks or so.  The dealer is promising me that he’ll be able to clean out every last shred of rat-mouse, but he also asked if I wanted to trade in my vehicle for a different car.  So I’m a little worried about whether this is truly “fixable” in the sense that a person will not be able to tell that a rat-mouse was once inside the fan.

I’m sorry, rat-mouse.

Around New Years, Facebook put out one of their movies where it tallied up how you had interacted with the site over the last 12 months.  I knew this because I watched my friend’s movie on her timeline.  It yanked out images of what was important to her: her kids!  her dogs!  her husband!  It told her to remember this good time and that good time.  And at the end of the movie, hundreds of “likes” spilled into a dish, showing her that she liked hundreds of things that year.  An online life well-lived.

I didn’t post my video because it didn’t say much.  It yanked out images for two loaves of bread and a batch of cookies.  Apparently baked goods are very important to me.  It told me to remember that good time when I was writing about Hillary Clinton before the election and that other good time when I was writing about Hillary Clinton before the election.  Finally, something like six sad little likes spilled into my dish, brightly telling me that I had liked six whole things over the course of the last twelve months.  I got the message, Facebook.  It was not an online life well-lived.

*******

A woman asked Polly for advice on a friend situation.  Her friends like each other’s updates and they don’t like hers.  Her text messages in message chains go unanswered while other people’s messages get tons of answers.  The woman states that she feels like her friends don’t like her.  Polly assures her that they probably do though maybe they don’t.

But then Polly says what I think we’re all feeling (sometimes) in our hearts:

We are complex human beings with many, many sour emotions that come and go like the winds, yet we’re never allowed to leave the pep rally. We are bombarded by chirpy, self-laudatory interruptions, expected to drop everything and cheer at any second. I get group texts from truly great friends of mine that say things like “Cherry tomatoes from the garden!” and “Another amazing hike in Fiji!!” and sometimes it’s really nice and I love it. But other times, I want these globetrotting Martha Stewarts to stop interrupting my brainwaves with their incessant own-horn-tooting updates. I just don’t want my phone butting in with this shit when I’m trying to write the first word of the day and failing, or running late to a pesky doctor’s appointment, or just generally lamenting my inability to grow cherry tomatoes in my garden and let my child pick them and then photograph my gorgeous toddler and my tomatoes and my massive garden because I have a fucking job, people, and I have shit to do.

Here’s the thing: I do love updates, probably just as many as my friend.  I just didn’t click the button to let the person know that.  I also, at times, hate updates, especially the ones that seem carelessly written, informing a large group of people that they weren’t included in this activity or that while thanking other people for a great time.  As Polly says, “Some cultural trends like texting and social media are just objectively great and also hellish at the same time.”

I think all of us are striving to lead a good life.  To lead a life that we can quantify as fulfilling.  We want to achieve nameable things.  Meaning, we don’t just want to be thought of in amorphous terms.  We want to be remembered for big things, important things, achievements that can described.  But here’s the thing; we’re living this life in the day-to-day world, and we’re also living a life in the non-physical online world.  It’s all under the umbrella of “our life” but this tool — the internet — has created a virtual living space.  And now we’re looking at it; wondering if we’re doing it well.

I’m not doing it well.

And according to Polly, that’s okay.

What if I told you that there was something simple you could do to extend your life by a few years?  You’d do it, right?  Like if I told you that gum chewing could extend your life by two years, you’d be chomping down on pack after pack of Trident.  Or if I told you that avoiding cucumbers would help you live an extra four years, I get a strong feeling that you’d be consuming your salads sans gourds.  (Did you know that a cucumber is a gourd?  Well, now you know.)

Things get a little more complicated when I ask you to take up something you don’t really love or give up something you enjoy.  Like if I told you that crawling around on your knees would extend your life by two years, you may crawl around for a while but then decide that the strain on your knees isn’t worth the extra time on earth.  Likewise, if I told you to give up chocolate, you may make a case for why losing a few precious moments of life is worth it for a good bar of Cadbury.

Well, guess what?  Worrying is going to make me live an extra thousand years.

Okay, maybe not one thousand years (I didn’t find an actual number in the article), but it is going to make me live longer.  Because I am an exceptional worrier.  So if worrying itself is life-extending, then my brand of worrying which amps up regular worrying to astronomical levels is going to net me decades if not centuries.

According to the article, “researchers found that higher scores on the worried-vulnerable questions were ‘associated with a significantly reduced risk of death from all causes’.”  Worried-vulnerable neurotics were “identified by their response to such questions as ‘Do you worry too long after an embarrassing experience?’ and ‘Are your feelings easily hurt’?”  Yes and yes.  And whatever the next question is, yes to that, too.

Worriers unite!

There was a partial eclipse back in college that I somehow missed hearing about until it was happening.  I stepped out of the Humanities building and it was dark even though it was the middle of the day.  I knew enough not to look directly at the sun (okay, I probably didn’t know enough but I’m sure a smarter student shouted that out), and we sort of just walked home, not thinking too deeply that we were witnessing a moment in history.

We decided not to travel to the totality zone for tomorrow’s eclipse.  The closest spot is far enough away that we had to weigh out how much it meant to us to see it.  Instead we’ll remain in the partial zone, tossing on our eclipse glasses in the afternoon so we can stare directly at the sun.

Do I want to see a total eclipse?  Sure.  Do I want to see a total eclipse enough that I would be totally okay if we traveled to South Carolina and missed the eclipse because it was cloudy and raining but we got to spend time with other eclipse enthusiasts?  Nope.  Asking myself that helped me to put into perspective what I was willing to do to witness a total eclipse, and it wasn’t drive 8 hours.

Still social media (and, to be fair, the regular media) has a way of fomenting FOMO over these sorts of things.  It’s as if Twitter is collectively asking in the most incredulous tone, “What do you mean you gave up the chance to see the totality?”  And Facebook is rubbing it in your face: “Look at me!  I am loving on this eclipse so hard!”  And Instagram is like, “Look at these aspirational eclipse glasses that I made out of recycled pallets and mason jars.”

So I’m trying to be okay with it tomorrow.  I’ll see what I can see.

Are you doing anything for the eclipse?  Are you in the totality zone?