Tela Network

Small but significant change to interacting with a phone: I discovered today that it's possible to prevent the phone app icons (e.g. the icon for Whatsapp) from showing a little red badge with the number of unread messages in the top-right corner. Android interface, translated from Spanish: Settings / Notifications / App Icon Badges on the Home Screen -> "Don't show" The small "number of unread messages" badge is an _alert_, and psychologically registers as a potential problem of unknown magnitude, interrupting whatever your train of thought was before you saw it. Alerts should be reserved for something that really is critical, not a new message in a whatsapp chat group. It's important in this era to limit (as much as feasible) the ability of an interface to capture your attention, and thus the number of interruptions / day. Interruptions increase stress and break concentration. The strategy today is to preserve your ability to concentrate.