Why Am I Addicted to Notifications?
The longing to be seen and loved doesn’t go down easy. But it can be easily warped.
Over a decade ago now, then Google employee Tristan Harris noticed something quaint about his company’s intentions with Gmail, which was that no one seemed interested in how the product helped people. Harris has written and spoken so much about his experience that I won’t delve into it too much here, but we all know it for a fact now: Google wanted to hook people, just like Zuckerberg and company wanted to hook people on Facebook. We’re talking about Gmail, by the way. A digital inbox where you get coupon codes for DoorDash. It isn’t inherently all that exciting.
I’m an older member of Gen Z and have spent a considerable amount of time over the past decade or so trying to unearth the psychological reasons for my own untenable addiction to phones and laptops. My despair over ever actually getting “free” of those things is always complicated by my detox efforts. When I got a dumb phone, I simply spent more time on my laptop, and vice versa. (Overall, though, having a dumb phone has helped me.)
I would always find a way back to the dopamine headquarters. No matter what, it seemed, I needed to check my email accounts, my Twitter, my Substack, my text messages. And finally, it all taught me that I’m not actually addicted to a device.
I am addicted to the possibility that someone sent me a message. That someone sees.
Now, this probably doesn’t sound like a revolutionary insight, and it isn’t, but for me, it’s been helpful in the ongoing diagnosis of the problem (and solution) of tech addiction. Without notifications, social media doesn’t skyrocket. Without push notifications, Outlook and Gmail don’t enjoy dozens of checks every single day. Without the ping of the glowing notice on the screen, without, at least, the possibility of notices, I probably don’t develop such an urge to look.
It’s a genius business strategy, and again, most of the people reading this will have heard the connection between social media apps and slot machines in Vegas. This stuff is designed to addict us. We know this. And we keep scrolling anyway.
Sometimes I think back to when I was a young teenager who didn’t yet have a smartphone (thankfully) and think how strange it is that so many of my problems and anxieties as an adult are seemingly manufactured by a couple of slender technological devices. Of course, being human perennially involves problems and anxieties. I have definitely become more skeptical of the idea that technology detoxes alone can mend our deepest problems. There needs to be something positive and beautiful and true to replace the addiction with—like meaningful activity and community. But I do think that a lot of the addiction stems from, inflames, makes insatiable, a very simple human desire for attention and validation. I can’t go back to being a carefree, phone-free kid. I can, though, swap out devices for more generative and beautiful forms of connection and communion.
I think it’s worth looking at the motivation to check these notifications so often—hundreds or perhaps even thousands of times a day. Why must we know if someone replied to us within twenty minutes? Why must I check to see if someone liked or commented on my latest Substack post? What is it about Gmail (yes, Gmail) that has me bound to the top message bar as if it’s going to decide the excitement gauge for the day? That it’s going to measure stimulation for the day? That it’s going to give me some modicum of feeling worthy for the day?
That last admission might just be a major piece of the puzzle. Feeling noticed, seen, validated, worthy. Maybe we don’t often think of the problem in those terms, but that’s the psychological, soulish vulnerability Big Tech has ferociously, and successfully, hacked.
Part of it is that I think I have an obsessive compulsive personality that latches onto things and doesn’t like to let go. I’m like a raccoon gripping tinfoil in a trap. If I’d just relax my paw, I’d get past the nails in the chute. Part of me, though, realizes that it’s a universal human longing to want to be known, seen, and validated, and that this desire isn’t a weakness on our part but a beautiful way God designed us. When someone sends you a text message, you feel like they care about you. When a potential employer emails you a job offer, you feel valuable and important. When a publisher accepts your short story, essay, or poem, you suddenly feel, for a glorious ten seconds, like “a real writer.” I wonder how much of modern life is about obsessing over this digitalized mode of conferring value. We’ve bought into it. A notification means that you exist, that you’ve impressed your personhood on someone else. That’s why spam is so boring. It wasn’t meant for us. Or maybe it was and the spamsters just want our money or identities.
Beyond the neurochemistry of dopamine releases, addiction, and digital technology’s savviness to dominate our attentions, all I can really conclude is that the answer can’t be merely a cold turkey. It can’t just a flip phone revolution, welcome as that would be. We need a culture where people really see each other again, not just in passing, but in a way that honors their dignity as image bearers of a loving God. You and I want to be loved, and not only that, to love others, too. That is just as important if not more so! If our calling is to become like Christ, then it is to love and honor each other deeply with utmost abandon.
Notifications on our screens make us feel seen. The other side of it is that they make us feel too accessible, too vulnerable to the outside world. We lose our sense of privacy and end up feeling exposed and eternally available. No wonder we are stressed beyond measure! Ultimately, constant notifications (and the craving for them) cause us to try to force the world to arrange itself around our own needs, agendas, and fears. My eyes then soon darken and turn inward. I forget that I’m meant for more than this obsessive little life bound to the messages I get through a glowing rectangle.
God notices even the lives and deaths of sparrows. And that should be more than enough for me.
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