The Tyranny of Red Dots

I have an iPhone. Since smartphones came out I have had nothing but iPhones except my first smartphone was an HTC piece of junk (this probably was it; I thought I'd like it because of its physical keyboard). I was so glad to be rid of it and get an iPhone.

But, there is one thing I don't like about iPhones. This would probably be true for any smartphone, I supposed. And that is, I hate red dots. I call it the "tyranny of red dots." If I have a red dot on my phone, which is a notification, I HAVE TO clear it and clear it now.

That means opening the app and figuring out why there are red dots. Sometimes the dots don't go away. Like on the Reminders app, I'll clear the reminder and the red dot will linger for a while. I hate that. Sometimes that happens on the mail and the phone, too.

Wife's email

My wife has Gmail on her phone and her mail app has a red dot with over 3,500 notifications in it. I don't know how she stands it. It would drive me nuts. See picture to the right.

This is probably due to my OCD about technology. My real life desk is a mess but my desktop on my computer is neat and clean.

One time recently, I had a red dot on Facebook Business Suite (the old Facebook Pages app). And I couldn't get rid of it. It drove me nuts. I eventually realized it was caused by a comment to a post on my page and when I read the comment, it went away. Still, it bugged me for at least an hour.

How do you feel about the red dots? Do you have to clear them now? Or are you like my wife. Let me know in the comments below.