There’s a time in your life when you crave silence over everything else.
Picture this. It’s Sunday. You sleep in but set your alarm early enough to enjoy the last moments of your weekend. Come mid-afternoon, you feel a sudden jab of anxiety when you hear a chime from your phone.
You look across the room where it resides on a charger. Your gaze returns to the television, and you sink your body into the cushions of your couch, falling into a deeper state of leisure.
Ding.
You ignore it.
Ding, ding.
You ignore the annoying chime once more, but eventually you lose the fight.
The sound of incoming texts, calls and emails infiltrate your state of peace.
You finally make your way off the couch, retrieving your phone to put the ringer on silent. It’s too late; you’ve seen too much.
Oh no — the Sunday scaries have struck again.
That aesthetic lock screen you picked out is now hidden under a sea of notifications. A LinkedIn notification reads, “your friend Peter Parker has just accepted a job as a freelance photographer at the Daily Bugle” — a Gmail notification reads “don’t miss out on the last day of the Nordstrom sale” — then you read “Instagram, @carriebradshawwritesss liked your post” — 15 missed calls from Miranda Priestly … a Moodle assignment is due in 5 hours from William Schuster and a text that says “will you be my bridesmaid?” from Belly Conklin soon to be Mrs. Conrad Fisher.
Oh, brother.
If only there was a way all of this could have been avoided. You would still be binging HBO Max.
To make sure this never happens again, you hop a flight to Paris, delete all of your social media, become a barista at Café de Flore, ditch your phone in the Seine on the way to Normandy for your weekend getaway and live happily ever after, free of the Sunday scaries.
Or you can always just put your phone on Do Not Disturb. Let’s face it — sometimes that darling little feature is the closest thing we have to a disappearing act.
No one likes feeling bombarded; that’s why a lot of people don’t make it through “Dry January.” They become so stressed they reach for the sauvignon blanc.
Ever since I joined the “Do Not Disturb Club” sometime last year, I have avoided the pure chaos that jumps out of our phones into our minds and causes an outbreak of overwhelming feelings and unnecessary levels of stress.
Granted, ever since I’ve become accustomed to DND, I’ve missed my invitation to the Golden Globes and Charli XCX’s wedding, not to mention other life-changing events.
Don’t get me started on how many times I’ve been late to some pop culture news all because my Instagram notifications were turned off.
Going on DND may be looked at as an irresponsible move, but I have to disagree. If something was incredibly important, we would send messenger pigeons, throw pebbles outside of each other’s windows or better yet, hold up a boom box until we “Say Anything.”
An “in” for 2026 should be using DND as much as our hearts desire. Going MIA is necessary to protect your peace, having strong boundaries all while maintaining a chipper attitude.
Sometimes silence is the answer. The world is loud and chaotic, but that doesn’t mean your life has to be.
I’m thinking our collective tagline of 2026 reads, “Please leave a message at the tone.”
In all seriousness, turning our phones on Do Not Disturb shouldn’t be used as an excuse to ignore our responsibilities, but a way to cope with our stress.
We can’t let our inbox lead us into a life of fearful thinking, but we can tackle it by turning our ringers off and putting our notifications on pause.
So here’s to a year of DND, not dungeons and dragons, this isn’t Stranger Things we’re talking about — do not disturb is the DND we’re leaning into.
Ava Francis is a 22-year-old journalism major from New Orleans, La.
