Technology controls
our attention.
We’re constantly bombarded with prompts, notifications, and badges that make us compulsively check our devices, spending hours using them. Companies use notifications and other interface patterns to demand our attention.
Notifications, originally used as a method for informing users about critical information, are now used as a tactic to get your attention. They rely on the variable reward mindset.
Push notifications
A 2019 study showed the average smart phone user receives 46 push notifications a day. Most apps ask users to “enable push notifications” during first time use, because it’s an easy way for them to get and keep your attention. They can bother you all day, tempting you to open their app for the newest and most exciting thing.
Desktop notifications
A study done by Mozilla showed that barely 3% of desktop notifications get accepted by users. Still, almost “18 million prompts were shown on Firefox Beta in the month from Dec 25 2018 to Jan 24 2019.” Simply put, this hinders a users experience by distracting them and demanding their attention.
Modals, or pop-ups, is another pattern used to capture a users attention. While there is a time a place for their use, they have mostly been bastardized in software and on the internet. They use a pattern called “confirm shaming” to guilt you into opting into something.
Examples of confirm shaming that happen in an opt-in modal (eg. “No, I don’t want to save money.”
