Snapchat clickpop of ambient touches from a handful of friends from when I wake up to when I go to bed. I like Snapchat best. It’s low-overhead. It’s the sound and sidelong glimpse of “was just thinking about you” or “quick, look at this.”

WhatsApp warbles at me from time to time. The occasional whistle of a Twitter DM. I have a dozen people on different text-message soundcodes - various half-bars of music play to announce them.

The only thing that punches through this world of gentle clicks and words and music is the phone ringing, which blasts out the top of Dick Dale’s “California Sun” at full volume. I like a ringtone that interrupts my heartbeat and liquefies the top seven layers of skin. It primes the pump for bad news, which makes good news a nice surprise.

The life of clicks and pops feels like a new phase change on the digital side of existence. It’s gentling down and becoming the ambient brook running alongside life that it always should have been. At least for me. Until the phone rings.

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