What Happens If You Turn On Do Not Disturb And Just Never Turn it Off?

What happens when you turn on do not disturb

and you just never turn it off?

I've been seeing more friends experiment

with the 24/7 Do Not Disturb lifestyle.

No notifications, nada.

And I was jealous. I wanted to try this out for myself.

So I spent a week ignoring every single notification

on my phone,

and I've discovered that the secret to happiness

is to stop letting your phone distract you.

I had no buzzing, no pings, no vibrations.

It felt incredible.

I had finally squashed that buzzing bee in my pocket,

but as the kind of honeymoon phase wore off,

other people started to notice I had missed calls,

missed texts, a call from my partner saying,

Why are you ignoring me?

It turns out there really is this unspoken rule

of always being reachable every second of every day,

and breaking that rule felt a little illegal.

Well, at least a little rude.

Numerous people who live like this full time told me

that this setting had reimagined their relationship

with their smartphone.

They were spending less time, doom scrolling.

They were enjoying the people in their real life more.

Well, other people that I spoke with

that always have do not disturb on,

they were still getting plenty of phone scrolling hours,

but it felt like it was more on their own terms,

which was important to them.

Every notification that comes through pulls your attention

for a few seconds, and over the course of the day,

those seconds really add up

and leave your attention feeling displaced.

By the end of the week, I felt calmer,

I felt more centered, more present

with the people I was seeing day to day,

but I also felt like a little bit of a jerk

because ignoring notifications like this

means ignoring real people

who are trying to reach out to you.

And God forbid you answer a text the next day.

Using do not disturb, it works.

It works almost too well

because once you've broken that social contract

and you realize you don't have to be accessible

all day every day, it's kind of hard to go back.