I was inspired by a recent post by @santhoshguru discussing the value of social media. 

Specifically I want to talk about notifications. I have a running joke about Facebook. I wonder what is the minimum number of notifications I see where I am guaranteed to see something I’m actually interested in. I think it’s around five. Some of the notifications I like: Someone’s birthday, someone commented on one of my posts. But so many notifications mean nothing to me. Someone added to her story. So what. XX page has new posts. Meh. You have a new friend suggestion. Oh goody. 

LinkedIn is also notorious for terrible notifications. You appeared in nine searches this week. So what. Someone viewed your profile. And?? 

I suppose there are ways to customize these notifications for each app, and I thought at one time I did that. But the rules keep changing, and now I guess I have to get under the hood again to refine notifications to the extent it is possible. 

Notifications need to be useful. For example, the notifications in 200WAD are very useful. I know when I see even one notification, it’s going to be something thoughtful or at least well intentioned for me to pay attention. Hopefully @basilesamel keeps these clean.

I think there is a lesson here for people who develop products that use notifications. Provide users with many options to customize notifications and make it easy. If I get notification fatigue, I’m liable to just turn off all notifications, which will result in less engagement with the product.