“Notify anyway” are the words printed on the screen in front of me. A slight grin appears on my face before I passionately smash that button.
“Did you just ‘notify anyway’ me?” I immediately hear back from my reasonably annoyed friend.
Yes. Yes I did.
Who do you think you are? A celebrity? The President of the United States? The manager at In-N-Out on a Friday night?
Whatever the reason. I don’t care. You will see my text.
The fact is that there has been a gross misconception of the meaning of “DND.” For years the acronym has been interpreted as “Do Not Disturb.” Well, I’m here to clarify that it stands for “Do Not Deny (me attention).”
If I’m given the option to disturb, I will be disturbing. Something worse than denying me attention completely is deciding that you’ve given me enough. When I’m in a heated conversation with my friend and mid-conversation, they turn on DND. You might as well just run me over with your car, and when I get up to tell you to take me off DND, run me over again. Good thing I never take anything personally, or else I would seriously crash out.
Hey, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s admirable that the teens of this generation are taking a step towards being less reliant on their devices. But blatantly ignoring the ones you love (me) is not the antidote to your addiction. I’m not insensitive. In fact, I’m very sensitive. I’m very sensitive to the fact that you may have a million reasons to silence me.
Maybe you want to save all your notifications for later and reward yourself with a little sweet treat after finishing your work. Valid.
But let’s not forget all those times you’ve excitedly unclicked Do Not Disturb to see who hit you up and to your disappointment, you have no notifications. None.
Maybe you don’t like to see your notifications. That, I get. But what notifications are you hiding from? Schoology? Gmail? Your ex who never texted you back (it’s been six months, c’mon)? Or if you are one of those people who are on Do Not Disturb constantly, yet you respond to my text in an instant. What is wrong with you? Seriously.
You desperately attempt to appear mysterious and off-the-grid, but you clearly check your notifications every second. Save yourself the embarrassment and just turn it off. Or maybe you’re truly one of those few who locked eyes with Dino Ambrosi, renowned for helping teens build a healthier relationship with their devices, during the assembly and felt deeply moved at the fact that one-third of your life is spent on your phone. In that case, kudos to you. But I know you deleted the Clearspace app a couple weeks after the assembly. You know who you are. I won’t name names.
I guess what I’m trying to say is: what am I truly disturbing? Your six-hour nap? You scrolling on TikTok for eight hours? Your feeble attempts at trying to reach a new high score on Block Blast? If you’re not driving, studying, or at a movie, I never want to see that stupid, little blue moon. Ever. Again.
