The Silent Author: Why My Phone is on Do Not Disturb

The Silent Author: Why My Phone is on Do Not Disturb - Forever

I don’t know how y’all do it. Truly. I am in absolute awe of the people who walk around with their phones chiming, pinging, jingling, and jangling like an overenthusiastic one-man band. It’s like their entire existence is set to the soundtrack of Incoming Notification Symphony No. 5 in B-flat minor.

Me? I cannot. I will not. I refuse.

The first thing I do when I get a new phone—before setting up email, before adding my contacts, before even connecting to Wi-Fi—is turn off notifications. Every single one of them. If a phone could gasp in horror, I swear mine would.

“Oh, you don’t want to be alerted when someone breathes near your social media? You’re sure you don’t need to know immediately when Aunt Carol posts another blurry photo of her cat? You really don’t want to be reminded for the 47th time today that you left an item in your shopping cart?”

No, phone. I do not. I want peace. I want quiet. I want my train of thought to pull out of the station without being derailed every five seconds by the digital equivalent of a toddler repeatedly tapping my arm going, “Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.”

Why Do Apps Think I Work for Them?

I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the way, my phone decided I work for it.

“Enable notifications to stay informed!”

Absolutely not.

“You might miss something important!”

Good.

“Are you sure you don’t want to know when a person you followed in 2011 likes a post?”

Positive.

Listen, I’m an author. My job requires long stretches of deep, uninterrupted thought, which is already hard enough when the actual real world keeps interrupting with actual real things like meals and people who insist I occasionally leave the house. The last thing I need is my phone joining the conspiracy against my focus.

How Does Anyone Deal with This Madness?

I’ve seen people who just accept it—living their lives as their phones chirp and buzz like deranged, overcaffeinated cicadas. How do you do it? Is it just background noise at this point? Do you hear a ding in the middle of the night and roll over, whispering, “Ah yes, another email from my dental hygienist,” before drifting back to sleep?

Meanwhile, if my phone so much as lights up unexpectedly, I fling it across the room like it’s possessed. Which, honestly, it might be. If we’re being completely truthful, half the reason I refuse to turn notifications on is because I don’t trust technology not to become sentient one day, and I would prefer not to give my future robot overlords a detailed account of my every waking moment.

Embracing the Blissful Silence

I like to believe I live on a different plane of existence—one where my phone is merely a tool, not an omnipotent, beeping dictator demanding my immediate attention. If you need me, send me a text. Or an email. Or, I don’t know, summon a carrier pigeon. Just don’t expect my phone to remind me to respond.

So to all of you out there, bravely navigating a world where your phone is basically a needy toddler with Wi-Fi—I salute you. But I’ll be over here, blissfully unaware, with my notifications permanently set to “No, thanks.”

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