Notes Apps Reveal Authentic Selves Beyond Curated Personas - Episode Hero Image

Notes Apps Reveal Authentic Selves Beyond Curated Personas

Post Reports · · Listen to Original Episode →
Original Title:

TL;DR

  • Notes apps serve as a digital repository for life's unfiltered moments, offering deeper personal insights than curated social media profiles by capturing raw thoughts and private experiences.
  • Individuals use notes apps to meticulously manage social relationships, storing birthdays, milestones, and conversation follow-ups to foster intentionality and meaningful connections.
  • The notes app functions as a private diary for sensitive life events, such as health struggles, enabling individuals to document experiences without external judgment or unsolicited advice.
  • Digital notes capture fleeting creative ideas for artists and comedians, acting as a first-draft repository that can later be developed into finished works, though shorthand can obscure original intent.
  • Notes apps facilitate the documentation of profound personal feelings and spiritual moments, juxtaposing the sacred with the mundane to reflect the complex realities of everyday life.
  • The widespread use of notes apps raises questions about future historical understanding, as ephemeral digital records may lack the permanence and context of physical journals.
  • Storing significant personal messages, like those from deceased loved ones, in notes apps provides an accessible, immediate comfort and a way to preserve their guidance.

Deep Dive

Our phones' notes apps, mundane digital scratchpads, serve as surprisingly intimate repositories of our lives, revealing aspects of ourselves that curated social media deliberately obscures. This experiment in examining strangers' notes apps demonstrates that these private digital spaces capture a more authentic self, reflecting our anxieties, profound moments, practicalities, and even our most vulnerable thoughts, offering a richer understanding of individuals than their public personas.

The utility of notes apps extends far beyond simple lists, acting as digital diaries and memory aids that capture fleeting emotions and critical information. For instance, one woman uses her notes to meticulously record her children's teachers' coffee orders, a detail that signals her attentiveness and involvement in her children's lives. Another individual captures a profound feeling of divine love experienced in church, juxtaposing the spiritual with the everyday, illustrating how these apps document the full spectrum of human experience. For those undergoing health struggles, like a woman diagnosed with breast cancer, the notes app becomes a crucial tool for documenting medical details, prognoses, and the emotional weight of treatments, serving as a private record to help them process and remember difficult experiences. This function highlights the app's role in providing a sense of control and a reference point for future challenges.

Beyond personal reflection and health management, notes apps facilitate intentionality in relationships and creative processes. One individual maintains a separate note for each friend, detailing birthdays, milestones, and conversation points, enabling him to foster deeper connections through thoughtful follow-up. This practice transforms the notes app into a relationship management tool, ensuring that interactions are meaningful and present. Similarly, artists and comedians leverage the app as a first-draft space for lyrics, premises, or even difficult conversations, recognizing its value as a private, accessible canvas for initial ideas. This creative utility underscores the app's role in incubating significant personal and professional endeavors. The shift from physical journals to digital notes also raises questions about the future preservation of personal history; ephemeral digital records may lack the tangible permanence of paper, potentially altering how future generations understand our lived experiences.

Ultimately, the notes app acts as a mirror to our multifaceted lives, capturing both the mundane and the profound. Whether documenting a grocery list alongside loan application calculations, as one participant did, or preserving a father's simple, comforting advice during difficult times, these digital entries offer a deeply personal glimpse into individual priorities, emotional states, and the very essence of how we navigate the world. The act of reviewing these notes, whether by oneself or by another, provides a powerful opportunity for self-reflection and a deeper appreciation of one's own journey and relationships.

Action Items

  • Create personal note-taking strategy: Define 3-5 categories (e.g., drafts, reminders, personal reflections) to organize information and prevent loss.
  • Audit personal note-taking habits: Identify 3-5 recurring note types (e.g., lists, quotes, ideas) to understand personal information management patterns.
  • Design a system for capturing fleeting thoughts: Implement a quick-capture method (e.g., voice memo, dedicated note) for 5-10 spontaneous ideas per week.
  • Evaluate note-taking app usage: Analyze 3-5 most frequent note types to determine if current app features align with intended use.

Related Episodes

Key Quotes

"But what do these notes from yesterday, or last month, or three years ago say about ourselves? Post Reports co-host Elahe Izadi recently took on this question and asked strangers if she could look into their notes app."

The author, Colby Itkowitz, introduces the central premise of the episode: exploring what personal notes stored on phones reveal about individuals. Itkowitz highlights the investigative approach taken by co-host Elahe Izadi, who directly asked strangers for access to their notes apps to uncover these insights.

"But if you want the full story the place to really look is inside of their notes app... it's this blank canvas you just open it up and you write what is on your mind things that you are afraid of forgetting things that are too important to forget things that are too private to post on social media or things that you don't think are even worth posting on social media so it's like this full collection of the totality of our lives."

Itkowitz posits that while social media presents a curated image, the notes app serves as a more authentic repository of a person's thoughts and experiences. The author explains that this "blank canvas" captures a wide range of personal content, from urgent reminders to deeply private reflections, offering a comprehensive view of an individual's life.

"And they didn't even know what was going to be in there until they opened it up so what did you find Okay so lots of packing lists grocery lists recipes lists lists on lists yeah lots of lists."

Izadi recounts the surprising willingness of strangers to share their notes apps, emphasizing that even the participants were unaware of the contents until they opened the app. She notes that a common discovery across many users was the prevalence of various types of lists, such as packing lists, grocery lists, and recipes.

"And to me that just immediately telegraphed to me like okay this is someone who is uh involved in her kids' lives but also is like paying attention to the teachers and has that level of attentiveness and thoughtfulness yeah and it just told me something immediately about her and how she moves through the world."

Izadi shares an anecdote about a woman named Sasha Teskier whose notes app contained coffee orders for her children's teachers. Izadi interprets this detail as revealing the woman's attentiveness, thoughtfulness, and active involvement in her children's lives and their school community.

"And I just thought that the juxtaposition of those two things like the holy and the banal like that's life right and so I did feel like I got a window into his life and in a way how we all move through the world we all have these moments where we're struck by something really profound and then it's like oh i got to what was the coffee order i got to get like we still got to live life you know."

Izadi describes her encounter with Christopher Davis, whose notes included a religious reflection alongside a coffee order. Izadi highlights the contrast between the profound and the mundane as representative of everyday life, suggesting this juxtaposition offered a glimpse into Davis's experience and the universal human tendency to balance deep moments with practical necessities.

"He has an individual note for every friend person in his life so he has 46 ish notes... it has the their birthday the day we met any sort of like milestones they've shared... so that when he reconnects with this friend the next time he knows to follow up on it."

Izadi explains Michael Lucier's unique method of using his notes app to maintain detailed records for each friend, including birthdays and significant shared milestones. Izadi notes that Lucier uses these notes to ensure he can follow up on important aspects of his friends' lives during future interactions, demonstrating a deliberate approach to maintaining relationships.

Resources

External Resources

Articles & Papers

  • "Notes app social media true self" (The Washington Post) - Referenced as the article Elahe Izadi wrote about her social experiment with strangers' notes apps.

People

  • Elahe Izadi - Co-host of Post Reports and reporter for The Washington Post, who conducted the social experiment.
  • Colby Itkowitz - Host of Post Reports, who interviewed Elahe Izadi about her findings.
  • Thomas Lu - Producer of the episode.
  • Sam Bair - Mixer of the episode.
  • Ariel Plotnick - Editor of the episode.
  • Sasha Teskier - Woman interviewed who uses her notes app to keep track of her kids' teachers' coffee orders.
  • Christopher Davis - 24-year-old man interviewed whose notes app contained a coffee order and a reflection on divine love.
  • Olivia Norman - Woman interviewed who used her notes app to document her experience with breast cancer treatment.
  • Michael Lucier - Man interviewed who uses individual notes for each friend to track birthdays, milestones, and conversation follow-ups.
  • Elena Torres - Comedian interviewed who uses her notes app for joke premises and set lists.

Organizations & Institutions

  • The Washington Post - Publisher of the Post Reports podcast and the article referenced.

Websites & Online Resources

  • Google Keep - Mentioned as an example of a note-keeping app on smartphones.
  • Samsung Notes - Mentioned as an example of a note-keeping app on smartphones.
  • Apple - Manufacturer of iPhones, whose Notes app is widely used.

Other Resources

  • Notes app - The central subject of the episode, discussed as a digital diary and a repository for various personal information and thoughts.

---
Handpicked links, AI-assisted summaries. Human judgment, machine efficiency.
This content is a personally curated review and synopsis derived from the original podcast episode.