Digital Pet Peeves: How I Deal with Online Annoyances

Technology has made life easier in many ways in this digital age we're in; in fact, it's been a lifesaver that has reshaped traditional ways of doing things. However, if we're being honest with ourselves, we'll agree that some things relating to our digital presence and the online world can be super annoying. From never-ending notifications, to spam emails, autoplay videos, clickbait articles, and videos, among many others, can literally get under one's skin, and over time, these digital peeve annoyance have made me sort out ways to manage them so they won't drive me crazy, and in this article, I'll be telling you all about them.

The never-ending distraction of constant notifications: From social media alerts to app updates, group chat notifications, and many others that won't stop buzzing, these can really be annoying and can drive one nuts. I remember a few months ago when I was actively chasing a Telegram airdrop, I joined so many channels to the point where I can't seem to do anything without getting distracted by multiple notifications coming from them and other apps. In the end, I made it a point of duty to deal with them, and how I did that is as follows:

• I disabled notifications. From most of those channels, I know hardly anything productive is shared, so I'd only get notifications from important ones.
• I also muted some group chats that I know I'm not really into but still don't want to leave; doing this helps me curb the number of notifications I get from them.

Autoplay videos: It's quite common to scroll through the social media platform and have random videos play because you scroll through it; even if you don't click the play button, this can be annoying, not to mention that it also consumes data. I remember one time when I was strolling through a website, and all of a sudden a video popped up and started playing loudly, which attracted everyone's attention to me. I was annoyed, and since then I've taken steps to prevent such from happening again, which is;

• Disabling autoplay in both my browser's settings and my social media app's settings.

Unwanted guest in my mailbox: Spam emails are just one of those things that can really get under one's skin. Have you found yourself strolling through tons of irrelevant emails in your search for one important one, most of them promoting either false giveaways, newsletters, and the like? The frustration I felt from them has made me take the following steps:

• Unsubscribing from all emails I don't need or don't subscribe to.
• I also make sure to avoid giving out my professional email to random websites that bug me with unnecessary messages.

Clickbait articles and videos: you'll find loads of articles and videos online whose titles are misleading and set so as to make users click. I really don't like all of these things and how they pop up during my digital journey online, and so how I dealt with them is;

• In my browser settings, I usually make sure I only use those that have an ad-blocker, so they won't pop up on my screen.
• Peradventure I get it either way; one thing I do is verify the source thoroughly before clicking to decipher if it's legit or not.

Overall, it's no lie that technology has improved lives, and the digital world has made a lot of things possible; however, we can't hide the fact that it's filled with some things that can be annoying. What matters is dealing with them so they won't ruin our experience in the digital space.

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All photos are taken and edited on canva.

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