Work had slowed down, and with some personal stuff happening, I’d fallen out of touch with tech and design. After a few days, I felt off, like I was losing my creative spark.

Normally, I’d dive back into work or explore new designs. But this time, I went further. I suspected something valuable was hidden in that “ignorance is bliss” mindset.

So, for two months, I avoided design blogs, tech news, and industry trends. I cut myself off as much as I could. I stuck to basic work, kept up my weekly translations, and that was it. My free time was all about personal life: hanging out with friends, dining out, sleeping in, gaming, reading, and watching movies. It was a great life, honestly, but it felt off.

Initially, I was anxious, feeling myself getting rusty. Design ideas became scarce. Then, I adapted, even got comfortable – a no-brainer, right? Finally, I was immersed. A different life, a different mindset, with its own way of operating and perceiving. And new ideas started emerging, the most valuable part of this whole experiment – I’d successfully become a tech newbie, seeing the world from their perspective: what mattered to them, and what didn’t.

Newbies Aren’t Dumb, They Just Don’t Care

We tech and design people tend to look down on newbies. Like, “You don’t know you can change your profile pic by tapping? You turned off notifications and now you’re complaining? You left your files at home? Heard of the cloud?”

Now, I’m one of them, and I understand the “tech ignorance.” My tech instincts haven’t disappeared; I can still figure things out faster than most. But now, I’m impatient. I have novels to read and games to play.

My 16GB iPhone 5 was constantly complaining about low storage. I used to check storage, meticulously clear caches, and delete downloaded data. I still can’t remember which apps let you clear the cache and which don’t. As a newbie, I found the easiest, most drastic solution: delete WeChat and QQ, then reinstall. Boom, hundreds of MBs freed up.

It sounds extreme, but it’s logical. Deleting, reinstalling, and logging back in takes five minutes, max. I know exactly how to do it. Clearing caches might take two minutes, but that “might” is key. What if it takes 15 minutes and doesn’t even work?

If I don’t view my phone as “fun,” I won’t waste an extra minute on it. It’s not central to my life.

Notifications, Updates… Who Cares?

My friends, Dee and Shuai, both in IT, have completely different phone setups. Dee’s is a classic product manager: tons of folders, neatly organized by function. Shuai’s is the opposite: few folders, many screens, endless scrolling, and red notification badges everywhere. On his home screen, the App Store badge showed over 70 updates.

It’s the classic “red dot OCD” debate. I used to update everything, open every notification (though not necessarily read them). It was like doing daily quests in a game – I had to clear those exclamation marks before logging off. Dee used to tease Shuai, “You’re a front-end engineer, and your phone looks like this?” I didn’t chime in, but I did think it reflected someone’s self-discipline.

Turns out… it’s not that at all. At some point, I became indifferent to the red dots, probably because of WeChat Official Accounts. An app can only push so many notifications; you can clear them quickly. But subscribed accounts? You follow first, worry about reading later. When notifications flood in, you become numb, and the red dots lose their significance. WeChat’s like, “Blame me?” You’re like, “Blame me?” Nobody’s fault.

It’s like a zombie apocalypse. I enter a supermarket with a gun. If there are two zombies, I’ll eliminate them and lock the door. If there’s a horde, even with enough canned food for 20 years, I’m out of there.

Lately, apps have gotten creative with their App Store update notes. Opera Coast used to write clever one-liners; Medium wrote poems. I’d chuckle, briefly amused. Then… I wouldn’t open the app. I’d just return to the home screen, every time.

What the Heck is a “Field”?

I haven’t touched front-end tech in about a year and a half. I don’t need to anymore. I have to strain to recall some tech concepts. Now, actively avoiding tech, I was slightly worried this might be a turning point in my design career.

One day, I was signing up on a website, and it said “This field is required” next to an input box. I knew what “field” meant, but it felt alien. What the heck is a “field”? I stared at the words, wondering if the developer had mistyped something.

And “cache,” mentioned earlier, I’m going to ask my mom this year, “What do you think ‘Clear local cache’ means?” If she says it clears her location info, I’ll take it, because I’ve thought that too.

At work, there’s a constant debate about a design detail: after a complex process, should there be a “back” button? Where should it be placed? As a newbie, my actions showed me it’s irrelevant. I follow the product’s flow, going in and out step by step, naturally. Let me paint the picture: task complete – press home – (if it’s a battery hog like maps, double-tap home to close it) – lock screen – back in pocket. I found that excessive, so after some lazy attempts, I figured it out: task complete – lock screen – back in pocket. The key is “back in pocket”! That’s my end of the process, not exiting your feature.

Back to being a newbie, holding this perplexing glass screen, I just want to share a song from NetEase Cloud Music to Sina Weibo. It says my Weibo authorization expired, so I need to log in again. I patiently enter my username and password. This happens frequently, in other apps too. But for the first time, I instinctively blamed NetEase, not Weibo. Then I realized, NetEase was the scapegoat.

If I were a true newbie, I might never realize that, and NetEase would be forever blamed. Tech details, product logic, I don’t know, and I don’t care. The situation tells me someone’s at fault. Maybe I slip on a wet floor in a restaurant, and a server apologizes for the cleaning crew, and that’s that.

Are You Reminding Me, or Am I Reminding You?

You rarely see people using Siri, right? I understand. Talking to a device in public, hoping for the correct response, feels awkward. It’s noisy, and it might pick up random sounds. Plus, it’s a privacy concern; people know your business.

But, it works. I’m walking home, listening to music, and remember I need tissues. I’ll forget by dinner. So, I long-press the earphone button to activate Siri: “Remind me to buy tissues at 9 PM.” No need to even pull out my phone.

I used to be a productivity app fanatic: email, calendar, notes – all front and center on my home screen… though I rarely used them. I tried every to-do app, so many well-designed ones, each with unique features. I settled on Any.do, loving its simplicity. Pull down to add a task, swipe right to complete. I categorized tasks by context: “buy laundry detergent” under “life,” “update annotations” under “work,” “research Pixate” under “learning.” Tasks with deadlines went into their calendar app, Cal. I was meticulously managing myself, precisely as Any.do intended.

Then I lazily used Siri once, and I couldn’t go back. I’m a newbie, not a pro. Bamboo reminds me to buy fruit; HR reminds me to make a name card for the new hire. What’s the difference? At some point, I remember something I need to do, and that’s all. Why report back to the to-do app afterward? Is it reminding me, or am I reminding it?

Once the reminder pops up, I don’t need it anymore. If you could do it for me, great, tell me the result. But you can’t, so you remind me, and I do it myself. No app can cook me scrambled eggs with tomatoes. Finishing the task on time is the best self-management. Who cares if the to-do app is a mess?

A good servant comes and goes as needed.

We’re Penny-Pinchers, Especially with Time and Money

I moved to a place with a KFC, my go-to when I can’t decide on dinner. KFC is great; they have mobile payments, so I only need cash for my bus fare.

Alipay has had an 8.8% discount forever, and Bamboo and I always get it before ordering. Her phone is still on 2G, so it stalled halfway. We found a table, struggled with it for 10 minutes, finally got the discount, and ordered.

Sometimes I go alone, same no-network problem, probably the carrier’s fault. I’m too impatient to deal with it, and I don’t want to hold up the line. Five bucks isn’t worth two minutes of a hungry queue’s time. If mobile payment fails, I just use cash. Pull it out, hand it over, get the change, pocket it, done. And I don’t have to stare at a tiny screen, trying to tap even tinier buttons.

Same situation, two completely different reactions. Bamboo wants the discount, even if it takes 10 minutes. I’m starving after walking across Hangzhou; I don’t want to wait a second. Neither has anything to do with mobile payments.

Looking at my WeChat history with Bamboo, it’s nothing significant. We see each other all day; urgent matters are a phone call, non-urgent things can wait till we’re home. Even so, we’re constantly sending each other food delivery coupons. The shifts in our chat history are revealing.

For a while, we’d send each other Ele.me coupons around lunchtime. One day, she started sending Meituan coupons; I kept sending Ele.me. After a few days, I switched to Meituan too. Then, I started sending Ele.me again, and she followed. Recently, we both switched back to Meituan, almost at the same time. What happened?

I randomly remembered this and asked Bamboo why we kept switching. She accused me of copying her; I said she copied me later. We hashed it out and reached the obvious conclusion: Ele.me had a “15 RMB off 8 RMB” deal, so we started ordering takeout frequently. The discount dropped to “15 RMB off 6 RMB,” and Bamboo discovered Meituan’s “15 RMB off 7 RMB.” I was slower, but one day I felt like it and installed it, and rarely opened Ele.me after that. But I didn’t delete it, until I saw it had a “20 RMB off 12 RMB” deal, and I started using it again, keeping Meituan too. Obviously, Bamboo noticed as well. It didn’t last long, of course, it was 12 RMB off! We watched it drop to “15 RMB off 8 RMB,” then “10 RMB off 6 RMB.” And we happily started sending each other Meituan coupons again.

If you’re going to have a price war, nobody cares about usability.

Final Thoughts

Now, turn on your phone, glance at your home screen icons. Think, are they trying their hardest to get your attention? Look here, look here, look here! But I’m a newbie; I just want to check the bus route to the subway. Everyone’s enthusiasm stresses me out. I dive into the maps app, find my route, shut off my phone without looking back, and go on my way.

My two months as a newbie felt schizophrenic. In a good mood, I’d tap anything, download random games and apps, and forget how I found them the next day. In a bad mood, everything was noise. I’d pull down the notification center, it was a nightmare, and I’d silently push it back up, pretending I hadn’t seen anything.

It’s hard to grasp; people are so unstable. Newbies are fickle; they change their minds; opening an app is basically mood-based. During this time, I felt like my thinking was stream-of-consciousness, my actions were “goto” statements, unpredictable.

I thought the newbie state was temporary, but it’s a great feeling, and part of it has permanently influenced me. There’s more to say, but I don’t want to write anymore. While writing this, the designer in me is resurfacing, the newbie feeling is fading, and there are some mindsets and perspectives I don’t want to give up.

The conclusion might be a bit pessimistic, or maybe there’s no constructive conclusion at all. But during this time, I experienced what was real, and maybe this is what tech life should be.