The Silent Hours Protocol

A social standard for two notification-free hours a day.

POSTED BY @liv · V2 · UPDATED 5 DAYS AGO

The Vision

Not an app. A protocol. Two agreed civic hours a day - say 9 to 10 and 21 to 22 - where every participating service queues notifications by default. Individuals opt out, not in. Like quiet hours in an apartment building, but for the attention economy.

Main Features

  1. 01OPEN REGISTRY OF PARTICIPATING APPS AND SERVICES
  2. 02ONE API FLAG: DELIVER-AFTER TIMESTAMP ON PUSH PAYLOADS
  3. 03CIVIC QUIET WINDOWS AGREED PER CITY, LIKE MARKET HOURS
  4. 04ANNUAL 'LOUDEST APP' TRANSPARENCY REPORT⟡ AI-assisted

The Long Story

Every previous commons - air, water, night - needed a norm before it needed a law. Attention is a commons and it currently has neither.

The Silent Hours Protocol is a voluntary standard any platform can implement in a weekend: a shared calendar of quiet windows, an API flag, and a public registry of participating services. The point isn't digital detox moralism. The point is coordination: silence is only valuable when everyone has it at the same time, because that's when nobody is missing anything.

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