You texted? I hadn’t noticed.

The modern phone seems to never stop vibrating, pinging and lighting up in an unending quest for our attention. Short of turning the phone off and rendering it a useless brick, there’s little one can do to get distance from a device. That’s where Do Not Disturb mode comes in. — Photo by Elijah Fox on Unsplash

Annie Wu Henry hasn’t gotten a notification on her phone in two years. Calls go straight to voicemail. Apps vibrate their updates into the ether. Texts pile up silently. Same with emails. They have to wait until she decides to look at her device next.

That’s because of Do Not Disturb mode, a phone setting that acts as a modern-day away message for smartphone users, cautioning those who contact you that you’re likely to take a while to return their messages.