Notifications: A Tragedy Of the Digital Commons

The smartphone was born alongside the era of apps. Functionality was app-specific and took place within an isolated interface. There was no…

The smartphone was born alongside the era of apps. Functionality was app-specific and took place within an isolated interface. There was no GPS in the early days. There was no real-time video (broadband didn’t support it), and communication was asynchronous and still largely done via SMS, email, or old fashioned phone calls.

Of course, today’s mobile devices are entirely different — they know where we are, they connect us in real-time, and the applications have evolved accordingly. The apps have advanced beyond their mobile operating systems. To accomodate, iOS and Android have tried to surface the always-on, hyper intelligent activity within applications in very unintelligent ways. We got badges on icons, auto-updating, and ultimately notifications.