WhatsApp is my only notification channel

Well, almost

About a year ago I started urging my friends, family, and colleagues to get onto WhatsApp.

There were three main reasons I wanted to get my entire friend/work graph on it: 1) there are no limits to the number of links I can share (and, uh, I probably send more links than anyone on earth; Messenger throttled me nearly every day 🙄); 2) Signal-based encryption (PDF) is on by default on all threads, including groups; and 3) it couldn’t be more reliable, intuitive, or consistent (I mean, it’s almost boring, and that’s a good thing). (It’s also an awesome platform for phone and video calls.)

Fast-forward to today and quite literally every single digital interaction I have is via WhatsApp (email and Twitter don’t count). And if I meet someone new it’s the first thing I offer up when asked for my contact info.

In addition, over the last year I’ve found myself slowly but surely turning off notifications for most of my apps. Note that I don’t turn them off completely, but rather set them to show only in the Notification Center. This way I don’t miss any, but they don’t interrupt me either.

So, WhatsApp, Twitter (though significantly throttled via in-app settings), and a few breaking news apps are the only ones I allow to throw something up on my screen any time they want.