The mute function on your phone is the best feature ever
Sky was on in the car, because there is so little chatter over the music and I find that peaceful in the morning. My navigation and Flitsmeister were running in the background, because it's handy to monitor your time a bit and not to stress your bank account with unnecessary fines. But at the top of the screen, about one message per second flew by. It distracted me from the milliliters of precipitation per minute on the already wet highway in front of me and maybe even made me a bit anxious, because did I miss something?
I spend about thirty minutes in the car twice a day, if I cleverly avoid traffic jams. I find these thirty minutes very pleasant, because I don't have to do anything except drive myself safely from A to B. One day I call my mother to go through the day's agenda from point to bathroom break, the next I sing loudly and not so tunefully along with the radio, and sometimes I do nothing. The New York Times praises this Dutch attitude, so I must be doing something right. Actually, the only thing that can distract me from doing nothing in the car is my runaway WhatsApp.
An extreme view is that texting seems to be the new smoking. I find that sounds a bit angry at the world, but sometimes WhatsApp does take over my agenda or my day. It's annoying for myself, unpleasant for those I'm with, and I also find it a bit rude. But I recently read in the NRC that your IQ drops by ten points with every distraction and the switching in your brain (which comes with it), and that is alarming. That would mean that with one car ride, I have no IQ left when I arrive at the editorial office, which is quite inconvenient.
I recently asked someone if she would have said the same thing if the person next to her on the couch had been sitting there instead of doing it via the app. And actually, I should ask myself that too, because when I'm in the car, it's not an option to have a conversation with 29 people at once. They a) don't fit together in my car, I b) wouldn't understand them at all if they started chattering at me at the same time, and c) I absolutely do not want to talk to 29 people at 9 in the morning. That's why I want to take a moment to reflect on the mute function, because since I've silenced my apps myself, I drive through life without missing anything at all. For those who really, really, really need me: you can call me.
We also have some clever suggestions for the high officials at the messaging giant:
– We would prefer to give our own consent on whether we are added to a group chat or not.
– A whitelist seems good to us, where you determine who is allowed to message you.
– And where is that darn vacation mode for those of us without self-control?
