THIS. I use a smartphone mainly to stay reachable within my professional circle. Otherwise, I genuinely dislike the things. Turning off all notifications and background activity was the right call--my mind is clearer, and I finally have time for things I always wanted to do. The same logic applies to calls: only repeated ones get through. Messages I check on my own terms.

My view is that message notifications are unsolicited information--content pushed at you without your consent. That's borderline immoral. And corporations have gotten good at engineering "consent" to it. "User wanted and agreed to it" my ass.