The Ultimate Push Notifications

Does anyone else remember signing an agreement to prioritize those who aren’t physically present to those who are? I mean, there must have been a waiver, disclaimer, or contract stating my signature here constitutes consent to be continuously interrupted by pings, dings, chimes, rings, buzzes, and whatever else our phones do to divert our attention from those people and things that are present, right?

Why do we even call these ever-present devices phones? It’s a misnomer since these Personal Interruption Devices (PIDs?) are rarely used as telephones now. But more on all that later.

Today I’m going to talk about the ultimate push notifications that aren’t on your phone: your kids. We all know when we signed up to receive 24/7 notifications from them. And they’re nothing if not consistent with their alerts. They’re also far more relevant to your daily life than 99% of the alerts on your phone.

The National Weather Service sending me a flash flood warning because it might rain later is far less impactful than the 8-year-old’s news bulletin that the toilet is overflowing.  

The breaking news alert that inflation is still high means nothing in comparison to the 6-year-old informing me the 3-year-old is trying to get on his bunk bed to put something in front of the ceiling fan’s moving blades.

That order update from a package delivery service has significantly less immediate importance than the situation update from the 9-year-old that the 1-year-old is in the school room looking for Crayons to eat.

It could be worth knowing that, *ping*, someone somewhere liked that thing you posted sometime on social media. But it’s probably more important to know that, *clump*, a toddler definitely just threw your phone in the trash can in the kitchen.

On a Personal Interruption Device you can customize how an alert displays. It could scroll across the screen, be visible when the device is locked, or just stare at you with its red eye on the corner of an app.

Kids are just as accommodating, or at least as flexible, with their push notification options. They can employ the tap on your arm insistently setting. It will get your attention, but this alert will clearly need to be reserved for legitimate urgent interruptions. Not for things like telling you they just saw a super cool looking dog.

They can also employ the pop-up notification where they raise and/or waive their hands to get your attention. But, much like with apps on a phone, once everyone’s giving pop-up notifications, nothing really pops anymore.

Most often, they opt for the audio and visual interruption by vocally interrupting while standing in front of you. I suppose Personal Interruption Devices have one advantage over these in-real-life interrupters: a silent button.

This makes me think of something Dorothy Sayers said in her renowned essay The Lost Tools of Learning. She says, “elders who have abandoned the wholesome principle that children should be seen and not heard have no one to blame but themselves.”

Obviously kids don’t have silent buttons. However, kind of like our invitations to the world to interrupt our real life via phones, if we’ve removed the barrier and created the expectation that children are to interrupt adults at will, who’s really to blame here?

*ding* That one might be for you.