My greatest pal messaged me on Fb Messenger. It wasn’t pressing, so I swiped the notification away, making a psychological word to answer later. Ten minutes later, Fb sends one other notification. “Reminder: [My friend] despatched you a message.” That is clingy, even for Fb. And it’s not the one app more and more determined for any crumb of consideration.
In simply the final couple months, I’ve personally gotten dozens of what I can solely name desperation notifications. Push alerts from apps that don’t really want something, however would like it if I gave them some consideration anyway. These embrace, however usually are not almost restricted to, the next:
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The Disney+ app let me know that as a result of I watched The Simpsons, I could be all for watching The Simpsons Film (which I additionally just lately watched).
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Discord knowledgeable me that somebody in a server I am additionally in up to date their standing, which is, I assume, a factor you are able to do in Discord.
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Venmo would love me to know I can fund my Kalshi account with my Venmo steadiness. (I don’t and can by no means have a Kalshi account.)
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Reddit started sending push alerts for information tales from communities I wasn’t subscribed to and had by no means visited.
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Duet despatched an aggressive half-dozen notifications inside quarter-hour of closing the app, together with a number of alerts that learn “She simply likes you.” Which is a surprisingly exasperated tone for a courting app.
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GrubHub requested me if I needed to order meals, exactly 5 minutes after I ordered meals.
A few of these are clearly simply commercials disguised as alerts—its personal annoying drawback—however simply as many appear to be little greater than a reminder that an app exists. And if you happen to may please open the app and enhance its engagement numbers, that might be nice.
Are app notifications actually getting worse?
Wow, I hadn’t considered that, thanks Disney+.
Credit score: Lifehacker
Whereas it’s at all times exhausting to quantify vibes-based annoyances, there’s not less than some knowledge to again up the concept that corporations are getting more and more determined to your notification consideration. Based on a 2025 evaluation from the Reuters Institute for the Examine of Journalism, information publishers have more and more relied on push notifications to achieve their audiences, as a technique to keep away from relying an excessive amount of on platforms like Google or social media apps.
Nonetheless, this bid for direct consideration comes at a value—and within the midst of an arms race with platforms. Based on the Reuters report, 79% of respondents don’t get any information alerts in any respect, and 43% of these are as a result of customers actively disabled the notifications. Worse but, iOS and Android have each experimented with questionably dependable AI summaries of notifications, making them much more annoying to cope with.
This report solely examines one small phase of the notifications you would possibly sift by way of on any given day, but it surely’s instructive of a broader pattern. We more and more dwell in an consideration economic system, the place seemingly unrelated industries are in competitors to your eyeballs. Which is how you find yourself with corporations like Netflix investing in video video games, or the online game trade competing with playing websites and porn.
In that context, your notifications turn out to be the frontline within the battle to your consideration. No, it doesn’t take a genius to know that somebody who watched The Simpsons could be all for watching The Simpsons. But when a fast notification can remind me to observe extra of the present at present, reasonably than play extra Pathologic 3, that’s a win for Disney.
And any win goes to be price it to most corporations proper now. Broadly talking, the economic system isn’t doing so scorching. So, if an organization can do one thing to indicate that engagement of their app went up by even 5%, they probably will. And sending extra notifications is usually one of many cheaper and simpler methods to juice inner numbers.
How you can lower app notification spam
Credit score: Lifehacker
There’s not less than one silver lining to the entire notification arms race drawback: There are a lot of instruments obtainable to assist get your alerts beneath management. Some are baked proper into your cellphone’s OS, however there are additionally third-party instruments you should utilize to implement some peace and quiet. Listed here are a number of the greatest choices obtainable.
Use your cellphone’s OS-level settings to handle notifications
Each main smartphone platforms have fairly sturdy instruments to dictate what sort of alerts you possibly can obtain, and the way disruptive they are often. We’ve got full guides on instruments for managing your Android and iOS notifications, however even if you happen to don’t wish to dive too deep into your cellphone’s settings, you possibly can slowly whittle away probably the most annoying alerts as you obtain them.
On Android, you possibly can long-press a notification in your shade to search out choices to tweak or suppress the alerts. Most notifications might be sorted into both Precedence, Default, or Silent, which behave in another way relying in your default settings. You may also faucet the Settings gear icon to dive into the app’s particular notification settings to disable classes of alerts. These will differ by app, however in lots of circumstances you possibly can disable issues like commercials or information alerts with out turning off messages you really care about.
On iOS, you’ll find comparable instruments by swiping on a notification and tapping Choices. Right here, you’ll discover fast shortcuts to do issues like mute notifications from an app for a brief time frame, or soar to extra in-depth settings to disable classes of notifications. In my expertise, it’s typically simpler to tweak these settings at any time when I obtain a very annoying alert, reasonably than audit all my notification settings directly.
What do you suppose to date?
Discover every app’s notification settings
Most apps have their very own class of notification settings that may be adjusted individually. In some circumstances, these can overlap with the identical settings you’ll discover utilizing the above technique, however simply as typically, you’ll discover much more toggles that don’t. Although, some apps are shadier than others by way of how straightforward it’s to search out these settings.
For one instructive instance, within the Reddit app, you possibly can navigate to Settings > Account Settings > Handle notifications to discover a prolonged checklist of doable alerts you possibly can obtain. That’s already fairly buried, however if you happen to signal into the app with a number of accounts, you’ll have to undergo this course of for every account you’re signed into. In any other case, notifications you turned off for one account would possibly nonetheless pop up through one other.
Most apps aren’t fairly this chaotic, however it could actually nonetheless be annoying to dig by way of all of the tedious menus. In some circumstances, this could be your solely choice, although. On Android, Reddit solely has one notification class utilizing the earlier technique, which means you possibly can solely flip all notifications on or off directly. So, if you happen to’re not discovering the instruments that you must selectively mute sure alerts within the OS-level settings, it could be price digging by way of the app’s menus.
When all else fails, use third-party instruments
It shouldn’t actually be crucial to put in an app simply to get different apps to close up, but when we should, then we should. BuzzKill, for Android, is a straightforward $4 app that provides you extra sturdy instruments to filter, handle, or suppress notifications than any of the built-in notification administration settings.
What units BuzzKill aside is that, on prime of filtering notifications by which app is sending them, it could actually additionally filter alerts by issues like phrases they comprise, whether or not they have a picture hooked up, or whether or not they’re a part of a bunch chat. So, if you wish to preserve getting information alerts, however you’re simply sick of listening to about that one man who’s at all times within the headlines for some cause, you possibly can selectively filter these out.
Sadly, this one’s more likely to keep Android solely, as iOS typically retains apps in tighter sandboxes. BuzzKill wants to have the ability to learn notifications from different apps with a view to filter them, and that’s not one thing iOS typically permits apps to do. So, if you happen to’re within the Apple ecosystem, you’ll have to stay with built-in instruments for now.
Extra broadly, it can also’t harm to let app builders know once you’re aggravated by their incessant pings. Firms would possibly attempt to enhance their engagement by testing how a lot they’ll poke your consideration span earlier than you flip them off (or uninstall the app) fully. However turning off pointless alerts can ship a sign that they’ve gone too far within the fallacious route. Sending suggestions studies, the place doable, can probably ship a fair stronger sign.
