I'm, as my middle school students consistently say (equally as much as the teachers at the same school), "I'm overstimulated." Maybe that's my fault with the lack of restrictions I place on messenger applications as far as notifications go:
"1 unread message from Facebook Messenger."
"Your Web Analytics classmates messaged you on WhatsApp."
"You have 2 unread messages from your family group on GroupMe."
At some point, every little vibration starts feeling equally important. Family, graduate school, work, Love Island premieres, Duolingo pestering me for a lesson, restaurant coworkers through SocialSchedules...everyone gets their own lane into my pocket. None of these conversations are particularly bad. In fact, I'd argue most of them are genuinely valuable. The problem is that they all arrive with the same sense of urgency.
What's interesting is that, unlike the public social media platforms I've been writing about over the last few weeks, messaging apps don't really ask us to perform; they ask us to respond. \ Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, and X all revolve around broadcasting something into the world; meanwhile, the messaging apps revolve around maintaining relationships and coordinating life. They're less about building an audience and more about sustaining the people already in your network. I'm juggling my master's coursework in one app, coordinating restaurant shifts in another, answering family questions in a third, and somehow still remembering to reply to a student who found the class GroupMe from last semester. Every notification feels like a tiny decision: Do I answer now? Later? Will I forget if I dismiss it? I wish it was all aggregated into iMessage.
What I found particularly interesting in Muljana and Luo's (2023) research was that professionals using social media for learning weren't necessarily successful simply because they had access to more information—they were successful because they became intentional about filtering it. Their participants described setting goals, seeking specific information, ignoring distractions, and reflecting on what was actually useful before applying it. They also reported the exact problems many of us experience daily: information overload, privacy concerns, and feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of communication competing for attention. That feeling I have of being overstimulated by messaging apps is reiterated here. Maybe the answer isn't downloading another app that promises to organize my life, which I've been searching for in this course. Maybe it's recognizing that messaging apps aren't just communication tools anymore—they're learning environments, workplaces, family bulletin boards, and social spaces all wrapped into one notification badge. If I regard every notification as important, then what's arbitrary and what's actually critical? Can I flag some app notifications as more vital than others? I suppose the challenge isn't whether they're useful; it's whether I'm intentional enough to decide when they're useful and when I should disregard them.
Well, I can help you regarding Duolingo - ignore it. I have a paid-for version that I have been ignoring for 61 days. Right now, it is saying 'Ignored.' I don't care. Having raised five children, I can ignore just about any message I choose to. Just ask yourself what happens if you answer later.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting part is that it also works the other way around. I was talking to my husband when I started reading your post, and then stopped in the middle of our dialogue because your ideas caught my attention. He knows me - luckily, he will be there when I return from my network travels.