Computer skills from scratch·Stay safe·Lesson 93 of 180
Do not disturb
Ellis Dennis GrahamFounder, Cyber Elias Academy 2026-09-02 3 min
The moon icon silences rings and banners and leaves the radios on. Alarms still speak if you allow them. A class, a night, a driving seat. Not airplane mode.
Airplane mode hangs up on the network. Do not disturb — the moon — hangs up on noise. Calls may still arrive in silence. WhatsApp still lands, unseen until you look. The radio is on. The ringer is off. This lesson is that moon, exceptions for a mother or an alarm, and not using the plane when you only meant a quiet hour.
Swipe the shade, tap the moon, or Settings, Sound, Do not disturb. On many phones you can schedule it: 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Alarms from the Clock app still ring on most machines; test once. Favourite contacts can break through if you tick that — so a family call at night still shakes the table, and a group chat does not. People you do not list wait until morning. That is allowed.
A class, a meeting, a laptop
In a lesson, the moon is kinder than switching off. You still have the clock. You still have the camera for a board if you must. Windows has Focus assist or Do not disturb too — Settings, System — so a mail toast does not ride over a form you are filling. The machine can be quiet without being offline. Use that in a CBT hall if phones are allowed at all; if they are not, the plane or the bag is the rule in the room, not this lesson.
Driving: some phones offer a driving mode that is the moon plus maps. Do not polish it while the car is moving. Set it before you start. A voice reading WhatsApp aloud in a danfo is a choice you can refuse.
- Turn the moon on. Ask someone to call. Confirm you see a missed call and heard nothing — or heard only a favourite, if you set that.
- Set an alarm five minutes from now. Confirm it still rings.
- Turn the moon off. The banners you missed should be waiting.
- If you needed the network off, that is the plane. Do not confuse the two icons.
What still gets through
Alarms, timers, and any app you allowed to override. A bank app may still flash. Repeat callers can break through on some Androids — a person who calls twice. That is a kindness for emergencies and a hole for a nuisance. You can switch that off. Read the exceptions list once. Shorten it.
The moon is manners for a pocket that never learned to whisper. You do not owe every banner your eyes. Schedule a night. Use a sitting. Then look, on purpose, the way you check mail and not WhatsApp every ten seconds. The messages will wait. They are not more important because they shook.
