Members Tool 9 of 20

Notification declutter

The 5 cuts that calm the phone down.

Remember

Every buzz is a little tug. Cut the buzzes.

The skill you're building

Quieting the phone's pull at the settings level, with your teen alongside you.

Make it yours
Age
Goes by
Phone

Why it matters

Walks you through five specific cuts that make a phone far less magnetic — from silencing badges to taming endless group chats. Apps are engineered to pull attention back with constant pings, and most of those alerts aren't urgent. Turning the right ones off lowers the number of times your teen's phone demands a glance every day. You get a short, clear list of exactly what to change and why — a quiet settings fix that reduces the tug without taking anything away.

The tool

The five exact notification cuts that make a phone less magnetic, with the why for each.

Key points

  • Turn off red badge counts that pull checks.
  • Mute noisy group chats and nonurgent app alerts.
  • Fewer pings means fewer automatic phone glances.

The science

Each notification acts as a cue that triggers a check, and intermittent, unpredictable alerts are especially hard to ignore. Attention research shows even brief interruptions fragment focus and make it harder to return to a task. Red badge counts and buzzes exploit our pull toward unfinished business and social information. Removing those cues reduces the automatic, habitual checks that happen without conscious choice, and eases the low-level stress of feeling always on call.

Watch

Take it with you

A one-page summary for the fridge — the takeaway, the skill you're building, and the key points.

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