Once I started turning application notifications off, I began to see much more clearly how manipulative they are. For instance, Facebook started emailing me, something I didn't realize I had to disable (up until then, I don't remember them mailing me anything). Twitter would pointlessly send a notification for "Person X and 42 others liked this tweet" and so on, clearly because I was opening their application less.

The intrusiveness and desperation only escalate. For me the last straw was when Facebook started sending me notifications over SMS.

If I hadn't deleted my profile, I'm pretty convinced they'd be calling me on the phone or showing up at my house with printed-out notifications by now.

Same here. I don't need a notification for every single "like" I get on Twitter/Instagram. In fact, it's similarly rewarding when I come back to the app and see a bunch of notifications waiting, knowing that they didn't distract me.

even in terms of sheer dopamine, i find it rewarding to see a bunch of new notifications at once. to me push notifications feel more like an annoyance than a dopamine hit. i keep them turned on for sms because it's useful as a way to contact me immediately, but they're off for everything else, including email. (i never turned them on for twitter or facebook because i discovered back in the 90s that i was happier turning them off for email)

> even in terms of sheer dopamine, i find it rewarding to see a bunch of new notifications at once. to me push notifications feel more like an annoyance than a dopamine hit.

The social networks understand this. I've read that they have algorithms that will batch and spread out your dopamine hits for maximum re-enforcement effect.

>i find it rewarding to see a bunch of new notifications at once

My wife wonders why I scan all my groceries at the store and then enter my loyalty card instead of doing it up-front as the system asks for. It's because if I see the price read $130 and then I enter the card and it drops to $110, it feels like I came out ahead. Even though it's going to be the same number.

My local grocery store does that automatically—the register rings items up at the full price and then applies all the discounts at the very end while you're waiting for the card reader to be ready. And it seems to do it intentionally slowly, about two line items per second, so that it takes exactly the right amount of time to be sure you notice it without getting annoyed at having to wait.