I can’t emphasize how important it is for you to control your phone, especially notifications. Every notification is literally a mind hijacking attempt. Regardless of the type of notification, it’s something that disrupts our thinking and our flow.

Some of them are necessary—but most aren’t.

All the native apps will of course try to get as much permission from you as possible, including notifications. Don’t allow this permission freely.

Get really strict about which apps need to send you notifications, and when. Take it from a dude who used to give free reign to all apps for notifications.

Once I started thinking in a more digitally minimalistic way, it made a huge difference. Running GrapheneOS actually helped with this a lot. But you don’t need GOS to do this and feel the difference.

I got some notifications turned on, but most of em are silent. So they still get delivered, but they’re not time-sensitive. They’ll be there when I check my phone next. I don’t need em interrupting whatever I was doing or thinking.

TL;DR: Be strict about which notifications you allow, and when. It’ll do wonders for your thinking, productivity, and mental health.

Here are 28 arguments for you to use.

I’d consider Signal to be the gold standard of secure communications.

You can describe it to them like WhatsApp, except it’s private, secure, not Facebook-owned, nonprofit so it can’t be bought or sold, etc.

Here’s the blog post that I share with my friends comparing Signal to iMessage and WhatsApp when they ask me about it.

It usually answers most of their questions.

I’d consider Signal to be the gold standard of secure communications.

You can describe it to them like WhatsApp, except it’s private, secure, not Facebook-owned, nonprofit so it can’t be bought or sold, etc.

Here’s the blog post that I share with my friends comparing Signal to iMessage and WhatsApp when they ask me about it.

It usually answers most of their questions.

Not as far as I know. There’s this Mastodon, but doesn’t look legit: https://mastodon.online/@Solid

You’re describing what Tim Berners-Lee is tryna build with Solid.

Elevator to the top, haaa see ya later

Not just download the app, but sign up for an account (and the newsletter in the process).

Then grant permissions to your phone:

• camera (so it can watch you poop and train + analyze the footage with AI)
• microphone (so it can hear and analyze if your plops are optimal)
• contacts (to send out an invitation to all your contacts, along with a clip of your last poop sesh)
• photos and videos (to upload, store, and analyze your life since birth, along with everyone else who’s in your pictures)
• sensors (to see how you’re holding the phone, when, how much, how hard, etc.)
• notifications (to sell you the premium plan)
• location (for pinpoint accuracy of your 💩 locations)
• call logs (to see who you’re communicating with before, during, and after you drop your log)
• nearby devices (for accuracy and to silently communicate with nearby devices)
• calendar (for full history and to schedule your next mondo duke)

No idea. Gonna try to stick to the web app instead and hold off updating the native mobile app for as long as possible.

I’ll have to try next time and report back. Honestly don’t use ride sharing too often. I prefer public transport.

I can’t prove it, but I’m 99% sure Lyft did the same thing. Had a perfect rating (and was even a driver at one point), and they banned me without explanation right after I switched to GrapheneOS.

Emailed them a few times asking for the reason, and they refused to tell me.

_"Legally, we cannot release any additional information except that we found your account to be violating our Terms of Service.

We will be in touch if we are able to reopen your account in the future."_

There’s absolutely nothing else that they could’ve misconstrued as “violating the Terms of Service.”

If Uber’s going down the same path, no more ride-sharing for me I guess. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

“Death gotta be easy, cause life is hard” - Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent

This is specific to open source, but perhaps a good starting point: https://opensourcely.org/

A rip in the multiverse. Source: trust me bro

Doing the people’s work 💪

Sounds like it. It happens with other Google services too. Someone could share a GDoc to your non-Gmail email, but if that non-Gmail email isn’t a Google account, then you won’t be able to access the doc/comments/whatever else (depending on the doc permissions, of course).

I suppose “harm” can be subjective in this context, and there are already some good replies here.

One more thing to add to the list that I’d consider harmful in creating a Gmail account is all of the privacy issues that come with having a Gmail account.

Out of respect for my recipients and myself, I wouldn’t want all of our emails being read.

We can go down the rabbit hole of “Email is inherently insecure anyways,” but that’s a separate discussion.

Nice to see this as a standard, thanks. Edited to reflect this.

Thoughts and takeaways, plus 3 viable solutions:

Thoughts

1️⃣ I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Enshittification might be a good thing. Here’s why

I don’t “like” that things have gotten this bad, but I do like that the worse things get, the more we can collectively organize and pressure reform to fix these things.

2️⃣ These tests are usually run on relatively small subsets of the user base. Remember when they rolled out hiding likes? That was rolled out periodically as well.

They typically also run different types of user bases. They already know the hardcore “influencers” and people who have built a public following will never leave the platform, since they’re too invested already, and are the people/publications that contribute the most to network effects. I.e., you’re on there because they’re on there.

3️⃣ Remember when Tim Kendall (former executive at Facebook) says that they talked about Zuckerberg having ultimate control over these 3 distinct goals?

1. Engagement: Drive up your usage. Keep you scrolling, liking, commenting, and remaining active on the platform.
2. Growth: Encouraging you to keep coming back and inviting your friends, and getting them to invite their friends, and so on.
3. Advertising: Make sure that as growth and engagement are happening, advertising revenue is maximized.

That’s what’s happening here—this is dial #3 being turned up.

Solutions

1. The most obvious: Delete your account

I know, I know—network effects are tough to break.

Tell your friends and family to delete theirs. Make yourself unreachable on Facebook-owned platforms.

Most people are posting less as traditional posts, and more as stories. If stories is your thing, Signal has stories. This is a really secure, private, and still convenient way to share whatever you want throughout the day.

If your favorite restaurant changes your dish’s recipe, you’d prolly stop going, right? Well, that recipe’s been changing, and we continue to put up with it despite an increasingly worse product.

2. For those looking for an alternative: Use Pixelfed

It doesn’t have nearly the same type of content or user base size that Instagram does. But the same way that we built Facebook little by little, the same can be done for healthier alternative platforms.

This might also help your reduction in using social media, if you’re looking for that.

3. For those who can’t/will never leave Instagram: Use an open source native mobile app (Android-specific)

If you have an Android-based mobile operating system, there are apps like MyInsta and Instander that give you a native Instagram experience while blocking all of the ads.

They also have app-specific settings that allow you to customize your Instagram experience even further, such as (but limited to):

• Downloading photos/reels/entire carousels
• Reduces data sent to Instagram (analytics, ads, and other requests)
• Ghost mode
• Block reels, posts, stories, explore, comments, or whatever else
• Tons more

I run a basketball media outlet (InThePaintCrew) and a lifestyle/photography page (LifeViaChicago), and being able to modify the experience to remove the noise/clutter when a native Instagram app is needed is helpful.

Lol it was the other way around… I actually added a word instead. Fixed

now.