Notifications

Your Apps Over Morning Coffee

A Season Opener, a Cup of Coffee and a Video Nobody Sent

An app can send notifications of its own, suggesting what to watch next, with no person behind them.1 This is one of those mornings, in Aisha’s kitchen.

  • YouTube can send notifications for videos it recommends, from channels never subscribed to, and keeps a switch for them, Recommended videos, under Settings and then Notifications.1
Aisha sitting at a small round table in the morning light with a mug, looking at her phone

Aisha wakes up the morning after the opener

The first football game of the season was last night, and Aisha saw the final score before bed. Over coffee in the morning, her phone buzzes. It is YouTube, with a highlights reel it recommends, from a channel she has never watched. Nobody sent it to her. She taps it and watches the whole reel.

Aisha at the table with her phone in her hands, the mug in front of her and a plant on the windowsill

Aisha opens Instagram for its reminder

Then Instagram buzzes. The notification is not from anyone she knows; it is a reminder from Instagram itself. Aisha opens the app anyway, and one post leads to the next until her coffee goes cold on the table.

Aisha standing by the table with a bag over her shoulder, her phone in one hand and her keys nearby

Aisha clears the shade before she leaves

She pulls down the notification shade and swipes the suggestions away, one at a time, and the red dots on the two icons go with them. She rinses her mug and picks up her keys. By the time she reaches the door, YouTube has buzzed again, with another highlights reel it recommends.

By eight in the morning

Aisha had taken the suggestions for part of having the apps, there each morning whether she wanted them or not. She had no idea YouTube and Instagram each kept a switch for the notifications they send on their own, YouTube’s under Settings and then Notifications, and Instagram’s under Notifications.

True to you

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Aisha wakes up the morning after the opener

If Aisha had used TrueTo, it would have gone into YouTube and Instagram and turned off Recommended videos in YouTube and Reminders in Instagram for her.

Aisha opens Instagram for its reminder

With Reminders off in Instagram, that reminder would not have come, and neither would the scrolling that followed it.

Aisha clears the shade before she leaves

With Recommended videos off in YouTube, there would have been no new suggestion at the door, and either switch would have been hers to turn on again, in its own app.

Suggestions

Suggestions from YouTube have a switch of their own under Settings and then Notifications, where Aisha can turn off Recommended videos herself.1 Suggestions from Instagram have one under Notifications, where she can turn off Reminders.

Sources

  1. Google, “Manage YouTube notifications,” YouTube Help, read October 12, 2026.