time spent offline

No Older Notifications

One time, after a day spent flailing around people, going from one plan to the next, intoxicated with the feeling of being seen, heard, understood— the feeling of belonging— when I got home later that night I felt disappointed because there were No Older Notifications on my phone. I felt lonely. Despite all the time I spent around IRL people, I was sad there were No Older Notifications from the URL people living in my phone. Frustrated and fascinated by the workings of the human psyche, I chuckled to myself. As I contemplated this bizarre experience, it came to me that my brain trained over the years to equate attention and belonging with the buzz and ding sounds of Instagram likes and Facebook notifications still craved the banners and buzzing sounds signifying I am wanted, I am important. This is the reality of time spent offline. After almost seven years spent without social media, without the news, and a dumb smartphone— a radically disconnected existence in a digitally caffeinated world— I still psychologically crave the validation of the online world. I check my email too often and I glance at my phone too many times desperately hoping for notification dopamine: No Older Notifications. I used to hate myself for this. Stupid, stupid, stupid girl! I get curious now. Why?

Coming of Age

Maybe it’s time, and the space time allows so you can reflect on the past from a safe distance. And the past happened on the Internet; MSN, Facebook, texting furiously on slide out keyboards and 2,000 texts per month limit. I’m old enough that some of it happened over the phone too; running to answer at the first ring before mom got to it: Who’s that? (If my mom answers, hang up! [A’ight, cool]) The giggles over nothing, the first song, that first kiss and intoxicating touch: The pull of sweet-sweet teenage love. And all of it was mediated by the internet, the devices, the texts and notifications— ding, ding, ding. No ding meant he wasn’t thinking about you. No notifications signified you weren’t on his mind like he was on yours: Constantly, obsessively, desperately. Pure insanity. For years and years and years, until the boys became men and I too found my way battered, bruised, barely to the ranks of the adult section, notifications signified desire; and being desired— the most intoxicating feeling of all.

Today, I am much older, wiser. Most of my life happens offline. I don’t have social media, I get most of my information from books and word-of-mouth, and my smartphone is as dumb as it can get and it has been on Do Not Disturb mode for years. All that to say, I have cultivated a delightful existence offline despite— maybe in spite of — what they said was impossible: To live IRL. And I write about my unplugged experience in this tiny corner of the internet, and I still crave that sweet-sweet Notification— an email, text messages, and missed calls— to signal someone is thinking of me, wanting me. It embarrasses me. Especially given the whole time spent offline brand thing; I’m self-obsessed, not obtuse.

Angry and curious, I wonder why. Why is it that despite all the years I spent trying to get offline, despite all the good that is in my real life, I still compulsively check my inbox for new emails? The answer comes to me easily as if it has been waiting to be asked all this time: I am wired that way. From the age of 13, when I first got on the Internet to the age of 23, when I first quit social media, the news, and began tinkering with my phone to ease my addiction, I have developed a raging addiction, a deeply primal association of notifications to connection. That is the world now. You want to be connected? Pick up your phone. We are wired to associate love, care, attention with notifications.

Where to now?

I’m too dumb to know when to quit. This is my curse and blessing. Of course, it helps to remember all the good that have happened because I got off the digital train. Angry and curious, with understanding for my silly behaviour— if my life is mostly offline, who is on the URL side to keep my phone company?— I look to ideas to tame my notification addiction. This is where the tips, tools, and tricks become necessary. After you understand why you do the things you do, even when you know better, especially when you know better. Your brain is wired over the years to crave notifications. In fact, there is nothing wrong with you. You are acting exactly how you are meant to act given your programming by social media, the attention economy, Silicon Valley. You are perfectly normal. What did you expect to want after a decade of learning to want notifications? Notifications equaled so many important things in your life; love, care, attention, affection. Who knows how long it is going to take— years!— for your brain to stop associating notifications as signifiers of important things in your life. Maybe never. Once a smoker, always a smoker. Understood?

Then, you can start contemplating what you can do to stop your compulsive desire to check your phone for notifications. Maybe it’s the Foyer Method: When you get home after work, you put your phone on a table in your foyer near your front door. Then — and this is the important part — you leave it there until you next leave the house. You create space between you and your phone. Maybe the space is figurative: S( )R. You fill the space with the following question: Why do I want to check my phone right now? If there is no good reason, you don’t react. Maybe it’s an affirmation: I must be expecting a specific message to check my phone/email. You can also commit to a schedule for checking your email: Once in the morning, once in the afternoon. All good ideas, and they work if you do the work.

You will fail

If you don’t want to fail, don’t try. If you try, you will fail, but you will also have a chance at succeeding. Stay angry and curious. I was angry for years: Angry at the phone, the internet, Silicon Valley. I tried all the tricks under the sun to tame my digital addiction. And they worked, until they didn’t. Until I was still left craving something, something that kept me compulsively typing gmai…, despite how much I tried to make offline joyful and pleasurable. Tired of hating myself for it, I got curious: Why? Because I am wired that way. I’m not searching for gmail.com, I’m searching for something, something of the past. That feeling. When I first learned to want and be wanted in a specific way; differently. All of it happened over the internet, the devices, the notifications. And what can I do about it now? Except hope that with enough time, enough effort, I will learn to forget the notifications. I will learn to want and be wanted in other ways; differently. Offline. And after a day spent flailing around people, going from one plan to the next, intoxicated with the feeling of being seen, heard, understood— the feeling of belonging, when I get home, I will put the phone away, take a warm shower to scrub the day away, and get into bed with a book, or desire.