I’m deeming this year the year of the push notification solely because of the disaster that was Hawaii’s accidental ballistic missile alert. On this week’s Why’d You Push That Button, Kaitlyn Tiffany and I look into why people turn push notifications on, especially for news. Are they masochists? What makes us turn them off? I don’t hate push notifications, so much as I wish they were more targeted and accurate. Kaitlyn resolutely hates them, and that’s fine. This episode packs a lot of content and interviews into 40 minutes, so settle in with enough water and snacks to make it through.

We first talk to two women and friends who were in Hawaii when that terrible push was sent — Emily and Meghan. Then we talk to New York Times writer John Herrman about his feelings on pushes, as well as his essay on red dots. Once we get out all our thoughts, we take it to two experts: Eric Bishop, who also works at The New York Times and strategizes its push strategy, and Christopher Dean, CEO of the company Swrve, which specializes in push notification technology. He explains how push technology might get more sophisticated in the near future.

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