I find Facebook useful for keeping in touch with friends and family that I can’t see in person regularly. I live in California and many of my relatives live on the East Coast of the United States. Similarly my busy life makes keeping in touch with some friends and acquaintances even in California in person difficult. However, Facebook became very distracting for me the last few years, primarily due to political posts during the 2016 Presidential election and even worse after Donald Trump won. I found Facebook was contributing heavily to distractions and wasted time.
Here are the steps that I have taken to largely eliminate the Facebook distractions in my life:
Remove the Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps from my smartphone entirely; only check Facebook on my laptop and desktop computers.
Configure my Facebook account to only send absolutely essential email and other notifications. No marketing or promotional notifications, no “someone liked this post” notifications, etc.
Install Matt Kruse’s Social Fixer add-on for Facebook and enable its’ built-in politics filter as well as add some custom filters for “Trump,” etc. I’ll say more about Social Fixer below.
Use SelfControl on the Mac and ColdTurkey on Windows to block Facebook entirely during my work day as well as sometimes at home.
Social Fixer
I have been using Social Fixer for about three months with a dramatic reduction in mostly political distracting posts. Social Fixer is a Javascript add on for Facebook available for both the Safari web browser on the Mac and the Firefox Web browser on a number of platforms. It comes with a built-in politics filter as well as user customizable filters and many other features to enable fine control over what Facebook shows you.
Social Fixer Web Site
The politics filter proved quite good although occasionally something will slip through. This enables me to keep in touch with friends who are freaking out over Trump (for example) or other hot button topics without being inundated with a continuous stream of distracting political posts.
Social Fixer Add On for Firefox
At least so far, I have found Social Fixer is a better option than unfollowing a friend on Facebook, where you lose all of their posts whether distracting (e.g. politics) or not.
Don’t Get Your News from Facebook
Facebook, YouTube and many other social media services appear to be using recently developed — we might say unproven, mostly untried — methods such as Deep Learning and Machine Learning to recommend, prioritize, and otherwise manage a wide range of posts, notably posts with political content. As I discussed in my previous post on reducing YouTube distractions, what these methods appear to do frequently is promote posts that generate strong often irrational instinctive reactions such as our “fight or flight” response. This often overrides our higher cognitive function which we need to use for most (not all) political issues. If you really care about politics or humanity, as I do, you want to avoid this sort of content so that you can think calmly and rationally about important issues.
Set aside some time each day or week depending on your schedule when you are calm and collected to study current events and the issues dispassionately.
Avoid your “Ideological Echo Chamber.” Identify a range of web sites or other sources that discuss the issues deeply and carefully from many points of view, not just your own. If you are a conservative, you should be following at least a few liberal and left-wing sources. If you are a liberal, you should be following at least a few conservative and right-wing sources. You should also be following some “fringe” sources that don’t fit neatly into the traditional right-left paradigm.
Fact-check and check the context of quotes and “facts” on all sides. A genuine fact can be highly misleading if other facts are omitted. Search engines such as Google and other Internet services make this much easier than years ago, when access to a top-notch library was generally needed.
Remember that Wikipedia is not reliable on “controversial” subjects. There are many examples of interest groups and activists capturing Wikipedia pages or bogging them down in flame wars.
Wherever possible use primary sources: read the actual memo, watch the unedited long form video, etc. Wikipedia is not a primary source.
Consider finding or organizing a dedicated forum — online or real-world — to share your concerns with friends, neighbors, colleagues and others rather than broadcasting your concerns with posts on Facebook or other general purpose social media platforms.
Conclusion
In my experience, it is possible to largely eliminate the distractions from Facebook using these methods:
Remove the Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps from my smartphone entirely; only check Facebook on my laptop and desktop computers.
Configure my Facebook account to only send absolutely essential email and other notifications. No marketing or promotional notifications, no “someone liked this post” notifications, etc.
Install Matt Kruse’s Social Fixer add-on for Facebook and enable its’ built-in politics filter as well as add some custom filters for “Trump,” etc.
Use SelfControl on the Mac and ColdTurkey on Windows to block Facebook entirely during my work day as well as sometimes at home.
(C) 2018 by John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
About the author
John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
YouTube can be very distracting. It is easy to spend many minutes, hours, even days watching videos of little or no value. If for example, you value your time only at the federal minimum wage in the United States — $7.25/hour — then ten hours of wasted YouTube watching in a week represents $72.50. Many people who use YouTube, especially professionally, should value their time much higher than the minimum wage. I usually value my time at $50/hour for business planning purposes.
Distracting YouTube videos are also often highly emotional and frequently negative; they generate anger, frustration, high blood pressure and other adverse consequences whose costs beyond the immediately wasted time are difficult to even evaluate.
YouTube is funded mostly by advertising and the distracting videos often have the purpose and sometimes the effect of getting us to buy something that we don’t need or that may even be harmful to us.
In this post I will discuss several ways to reduce time wasting distractions from YouTube, present some general observations and opinions on distractions caused by YouTube, and suggest some ways YouTube might improve the end user experience and even make more money by doing so.
Active Distractions
By active distractions, I mean distractions such as e-mail notifications and smartphone notifications that actively interrupt the user. They buzz. They beep. They flash across the computer screen. They appear as alarming red badges on icons.
Like most social media web services, YouTube by default enables many active e-mail, smartphone, and computer notifications. Most of these can be turned off either in the YouTube account settings or the settings for the smartphone or computer. Generally, all you really need to receive are any bills or receipts.
Passive Distractions
For me, a bigger problem with YouTube — and also other social media such as Facebook — has been passive distractions. A passive distractions is typically something that appears in your field of view such as a thumbnail image and/or catchy emotive headline that stimulates a strong emotional response and often an urge to click on the image or link. On YouTube this is typically one or more of the recommendations produced by YouTube.
YouTube appears to be collecting and storing a detailed personal history of everything you click on, watch, or do on YouTube. Probably this is integrated with other information that Google is collecting about you.
I have used YouTube for many years and it seems to be getting much better in the last few years at finding “recommendations” that “push my buttons” — get me to click and watch videos that often aren’t that useful but cause a strong emotional reaction. This may be the consequence of new algorithms such as the Machine Learning and Deep Learning research that Google publicizes heavily.
Removing Distracting Recommendations from Your YouTube Home Page
At present (January 28, 2018), you can remove the recommendations from your default YouTube home page by clearing and pausing the search and watch histories in the YouTube Settings.
For me, removing the recommendations on the YouTube Home Page significantly reduces the passive distractions, although once I watch a video, YouTube will still push distracting recommendations on the individual video page — not the Home Page. It will also occasionally recommend some YouTube channels on the Home Page which is markedly less distracting than the personalized video recommendations.
Upper Left Corner of My YouTube Home Page
You can get to the YouTube Settings by clicking on the avatar icon/thumbnail in the upper right corner of your YouTube Home Page.
YouTube PullDown Menu with Settings Menu Item
Clicking will bring up a pulldown menu with a Settings Menu Item. Select the Settings menu item. This brings up the Settings Overview page. At the bottom of the Settings Overview page (as well as the other Settings pages) there is a History button.
My YouTube Settings Overview Page with History Button Circled
Click on the History button to bring up the settings for the search and watch histories.
Clear and Pause Watch History Menu
Use this menu to clear and pause both the search and the watch histories. Once this is done (at least for me), the personalized video recommendations disappear from your YouTube Home Page. Mostly you see your subscribed channels and occasionally YouTube will recommend an unsubscribed channel. I usually click the X button to dismiss the recommended channel.
YouTube Pushing Unsubscribed Channel
So far, this has greatly reduced the passive distractions for me from the YouTube Home Page and using YouTube.
It is pretty clear from the video recommendations that appear when watching a specific YouTube video (not the Home Page), that YouTube continues to retain watch and search history information despite the change in the settings. I still see highly personalized recommendations which can sometimes be distracting.
Blocking YouTube Entirely
You can block YouTube, Facebook, and other distracting web sites or applications entirely by using software such as SelfControl, ColdTurkey, and other competing products. These can be configured to block access to the web site or software application (such as a game) on your computer for certain periods of time such as during the work day (9 AM to 5PM for example).
One of the problems with blocking web sites is that YouTube has lectures, technical presentations, sales presentations, and other content that is genuinely useful at work. Facebook, on the other hand, is usually entirely a personal activity and blocking it during work is not a problem for most people unless your work involves Facebook.
The Race to the Bottom of the Brain Stem
What YouTube specifically and many other social media services (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) appear to be doing, whether by design or somewhat unwittingly, is what former Google engineer Tristan Harris has labeled as “the race to the bottom of the brain stem.” In practical terms, they are using “Big Data” and machine learning algorithms to identify highly emotional topics that “push our buttons,” that invoke primal impulses such as “fight or flight” that override our higher cognitive function. That gets us to click and watch videos of little or no real value.
The primal impulses are nothing new. They include such hot button topics as:
Sex
Violence
Interpersonal Conflict
Our personal and group sense of identity
Religion and spirituality
For example, if you are a heterosexual guy it is almost certain if YouTube pushes a thumbnail of a pretty scantily clad young woman, you will have an emotional response and be distracted regardless of your higher cognitive function — and often click and watch. If you are a heterosexual woman, you probably will have the same reaction to a scantily clad athletic young man. Music videos, a popular YouTube video category, in particular exploit this a lot.
Violence and interpersonal conflict in particular invoke the powerful and often short-sighted fight or flight response.
Waiting for greedy, short-sighted corporations or politicians to fix this emotional hot button pushing problem is unlikely to succeed. Government action is also difficult to reconcile with the ideal of a free press.
People — customers, consumers — need to look out for themselves, reduce the distractions, and find effective ways to insulate themselves from the emotional hot button pushing.
Why Primal Impulses Override Our Higher Cognitive Function
Primal impulses override our higher cognitive function for good reasons. The example that is often given is our ancestors thousands of years ago encountering a major predator such as a tiger or bear. There is no time for higher cognitive function. The fight or flight response kicks in and, in this case correctly, overrides and even shuts down our capacity for careful, time consuming analysis.
A more relevant modern example is handling a car accident or near car accident. There just isn’t time to perform an in depth rational analysis of what is happening. The driver needs to react immediately. In a serious car accident, hitting the brakes or turning sharply — a flight response — can be the difference between life and death.
The problem is that in the modern world we are often confronted with threats or emotional stimuli that don’t in fact require an immediate emotional response. They often require careful thought. Nonetheless, the primal instincts can take over completely. High intelligence, education is often not an adequate defense. The response is fast and instinctive as it needs to be in a car accident.
YouTube, other social media services, and other new technologies are rapidly developing greater and greater ability to invoke these primal impulses, overriding the higher cognitive function of even highly intelligent, educated, experienced people. An immediate consequence is high levels of distraction and wasted time. More serious consequences could include stoking conflicts and starting a major war, even a nuclear war.
A Better YouTube?
YouTube is funded primarily by advertising which creates a strong perverse financial incentive for the emotional hot button pushing and the distraction. The more advertising you watch, the more money they make.
A YouTube or YouTube competitor funded by short free sample videos and micro-payments for longer, more in depth content could avoid this perverse financial incentive and probably make more money. By most accounts, YouTube is not profitable and seems to be struggling to find a viable business model.
My personal impression from using YouTube is that advertising on YouTube is mostly ineffective. I go to YouTube for the content, either “how to” information or entertainment. I don’t go to YouTube for the advertising and generally ignore it. My educated guess is most YouTube viewers are the same although I am well past the main age demographic of YouTube viewers.
I would be willing to pay directly for some of the content, but typically not short few minute videos or low quality content. I don’t like subscriptions since they often prove expensive and difficult to cancel. My personal unscientific impression based on my personal experience is that free short or lower quality content and micropayments for longer in depth content would bring in more money than advertising.
YouTube uses free samples and micro-payments with movie trailers and one time rental or purchase payments for many movies, but it is clearly not their major source of revenues. In my own experience, I will pay a few dollars to “rent” a movie from YouTube a few times per month. I have never bought something based on a YouTube ad.
YouTube — and many social media services — would be better if the end users had fine grained control over the algorithms in their account settings. There are add on products such as Social Fixer for Facebook that add this to some social media services. Nanny software that enables parents to control or try to control what their children see on the Internet is a related product.
It would be better to be able to configure YouTube to block emotional hot button content except for a few hours per week when you have the time and are prepared to deal with emotional topics.
Conclusion
It is currently possible to reduce the passive distractions from personalized YouTube recommendations on your YouTube Home Page — in my experience a major source of the distractions — by clearing and pausing the watch and search histories in the YouTube Account settings. It is also possible to completely block YouTube using blocking software such SelfControl, ColdTurkey, and many others. I have had pretty good results with these methods.
More generally, it is increasingly important due to the rapidly improving distraction technology to insulate yourself from the emotional hot button pushing on YouTube and many other social media services. It is an on-going battle. YouTube could easily disable the method described in this blog post.
It is important and prudent to evaluate on a monthly or even weekly basis the distractions and emotional hot button pushing from current “technology” including social media services and smartphone operating systems. The distraction technology is improving rapidly.
The distractions are costly in time and productivity and probably have other hidden or difficult to measure costs such as buying something you don’t need, voting for a politician or public policy that is harmful, or getting into an unnecessary conflict with colleagues, friends, or family.
(C) 2018 by John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
One of the many stressful, error-prone inconveniences of modern air travel is identifying and correctly retrieving your checked luggage from among often hundreds of other remarkably similar looking bags. Worst case, in a distracted hurry, you incorrectly take someone else’s luggage and never recover your own luggage! 🙁
The cause of this problem is that most luggage today looks quite similar. Most bags are a dark gray or black color with rollers on one end and an extensible handle on the other end. The printed tags provided by the airlines are remarkably similar, featuring unreadable bar codes and numbers.
Most tags with your name and address that you can buy at convenience stores or other locations are small and frequently gray or black as well, looking at a distance like every other tag on every other bag.
Consequently, it is frequently impossible to identify your luggage until it is right on top of you, about to go by on the carousel. You may have to run after it or wait until it comes around again even if you can identify it. This is often stressful and frustrating after a long trip, especially on top of other mishaps or delays.
While I have never ended up with someone else’s bags, it is easy to see how a distracted traveler could fail to check the tag and leave the airport with someone else’s luggage, worst case never recovering their own luggage.
Here is my solution:
Large Distinctive Luggage Tags (DIY)
Historically, travelers solved this problem by putting labels or stickers, often provided by hotels or other travel related firms, on their luggage which was typically a hard surface. Modern luggage like mine is often canvas or some other soft flexible material. Stickers such as those now widely used to personalize laptops won’t stick properly to soft luggage.
However, one can use large cruise tags used for personalizing and tracking luggage on cruise ships (cruise tags are available through Amazon and other sources) to hold appropriately sized pieces of paper or cardboard with colorful distinctive stickers affixed to the paper or cardboard:
A cruise tag is a transparent flat pouch that can hold an identifying tag of your choosing or design. It is easy to cut a piece of paper or cardboard that fits within the pouch and mount stickers on the piece of paper or cardboard as shown.
Obviously, if you choose to follow my example, you should select your own stickers that reflect your personal identity and style, just as you would for a laptop.
Select a pattern of bright colors that is easily identifiable at a few dozen feet (roughly ten meters) — the typical size of a baggage carousel at an airport. As the bag approaches it will be easy to confirm your identification as the sticker becomes fully readable and retrieve your bag easily before it rushes past you.
Finally, yes I successfully used this DIY (do-it-yourself) solution to the checked bag retrieval problem on my latest trip across the United States. 🙂
(C) 2017 John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
This is a picture of the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona taken from the access road after my visit today. There are spectacular views of the region from the parking lot and both inside and outside the chapel when you get to the top. There is a Wikipedia page on the Chapel with more details including the history of the unusual structure.
(C) 2017 John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
May 2018 be a good year and a much better year for everyone!!!
Some thoughts on how to make 2018 a better year than 2017
Don’t let your smartphone, social media, or 24/7 cable news rule your life and cloud your judgment. Turn off all but absolutely essential notifications on your smartphone. Remove frivolous social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn from your smartphone. Unsubscribe from mailing lists. Turn off all but absolutely essential email notifications from your social media and other accounts — generally only bills and receipts. If you have to use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends, install Social Fixer or a similar tool to filter out distracting political or other posts. Set aside quiet time away from the Internet and other distractions to clear your mind, both to relax and to think deeply about the important issues in your life.
Anger rarely leads to good decisions. Note that I said “rarely” not “never.” When angry, calm down, take a walk, get some other exercise, talk the issues over with a friend or colleague that you can trust, gather more information, listen to all sides. Then decide. Anger and outrage sell. They get clicks, eyeballs, advertising revenues on social media. The algorithms used by social media are rapidly increasing their ability to find our hot buttons and get us mad — because anger makes money. Be an informed consumer and citizen and don’t buy the anger for sale!
Learn from your mistakes and bury them. I have a lot of trouble with the “bury” part. Nonetheless, when we make a mistake or something goes wrong in our life through no fault of our own, we need both to learn from what happened and to move on with our life. Let the past go.
Expect the unexpected. Surprises happen. Be prepared if you can. Set aside money for a rainy day if you can. When surprised, recognize that you have been surprised, gather more information if possible, and take appropriate action. You may have to make a major change in direction in life. In some cases you may have to give up on what you are doing. There is a lot of stigma associated with giving up. Nonetheless, sometimes that is the correct response to a surprise.
Sometimes the problem is other people. Most people are not monsters. Most people are not saints either. The world is often not black and white. There are shades of gray. It is important not to jump to the conclusion that other people are evil, insane, or irretrievably stupid just because they disagree with us or oppose us. Listen. Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Consider your own faults and improve yourself. You may even discover on careful consideration that you are wrong and they are right. But… some people are monsters. There are crazy people. There is evil in the world. Sometimes the problem is the other person or people and won’t respond to these wholesome appealing methods, much beloved of self-help books and gurus.
(C) 2017 John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Mitten Ridge is the red rock formation on the left. Munds Mountain is the less red, more grayish rock formations on the right. Picture taken from Arizona State Route 89A somewhat south of the Uptown Sedona section of town.
(C) 2017 John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Another picture of the red rock hills around Sedona, Arizona (United States). The road in the foreground is Arizona State Route 89A which is the main/only road through much of Sedona.
(C) 2017 John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
A picture from the main street in Sedona, Arizona (United States), showing some of the famous red rock formations surrounding the town. Sedona is about a two hour drive north of Phoenix up in the mountains. Flagstaff is about a half hour drive north of Sedona.
Sedona is home to numerous resorts, art galleries, gift shops, all sorts of New Age stores and other oddities, hiking trails, ancient American Indian ruins, and much more. 🙂
Sedona is an easy drive north from Phoenix once you get out of the city — until you get to downtown Sedona. Arrive at the wrong time as I did and you will run into a traffic jam as all the traffic is funneled into the single main road. It took me about twenty minutes to drive the last mile to the hotel! 🙁
Arizona is a desert. Remember to bring plenty of water on the road trip.
It is prudent to arrive before sundown since it is very dark at night and various wild animals may come out as well.
For the geeks out there, Sedona has state of the art wireless Internet, comparable to my home city of Mountain View in Northern California, best known worldwide as the site of Google’s headquarters.
(C) 201 7 John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
A persistent source of distractions on the Macintosh (Mac OS X) and also the iPhone (IOS) is the annoying red notification badge on the App Store icon urging you to update your apps and sometimes operating system, sometimes with disastrous consequences.
App Store in Dock Urging Update to Mac OS High Sierra
It is, for example, generally a good practice to wait some time after an update is announced and pushed by a vendor until the almost inevitable bugs are worked out before actually updating. This is particularly true of major operating system updates such as Apple’s macOS High Sierra update which featured a major security bug enabling anyone to trivially log on as an all-powerful root user, giving new meaning to the Apple “It Just Works” slogan.
In addition, the red notification badges are simply annoying and distracting, often interfering with the user’s ability to focus and concentrate on cognitively demanding work, presumably the main goal of using a computer.
Fortunately, there are some options to turn off or hide the distracting red notification badges. On Mac OS X, in the System Preferences, there is a control for the App Store. In this control, one can turn off automatic checking for updates:
System Preferences Menu Item in Apple MenuApp Store Control in System Preferences (Third from Left on Third Row)App Store System Preferences
Note that by default automatic checking for updates is turned ON.
Unfortunately, this does not help if the App Store is already aware of an update. In my case, App Store is aware of an update for the Xcode IDE (Interactive Development Environment for software) which says it includes the super-buggy macOS High Sierra update:
Unwanted Xcode Update with macOS High Sierra
As mentioned, I would rather hold off until the bugs are worked out and I don’t want to be annoyed or distracted by the red notification badge.
By default, the App Store is included in the Dock. However, one can remove the App Store and other apps from the Dock so that the annoying red badge is hidden unless you explicitly open the App Store.
Right Click on App Store Icon to See Options
Right click on the App Store icon in the Dock to see the options. The App Store has an option “Keep In Dock.” By default this option is checked. Simple un-check the “Keep In Dock” option to remove the App Store from the Dock. You must explicitly launch the App Store for it to appear on the dock and the App Store will leave the Dock when it is closed.
Tested on a MacBook Air (13 inch, early 2014) with macOS Sierra version 10.12.6
iPhone App Store
On the iPhone, one can turn off the red notification badges on the App Store icon by launching the iPhone Setting app:
iPhone Settings App
In Settings, select Notifications:
Notifications in Settings App
Then, turn off notifications from the App Store:
App Store Notification ON/OFF Setting
Now, you will have to open the App Store to see if any updates are available. The often annoying and distracting red notification badges will no longer display.
(C) 2017 by John F. McGowan, Ph.D.
About the Author
John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
