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- Beany Brain #113: Haptic Feedback? NO, THANK YOU + Outer Accountability
Beany Brain #113: Haptic Feedback? NO, THANK YOU + Outer Accountability
Abigail Munday
September 29, 2026
Beany Brain: loving our jumping-bean brains!
Welcome to this issue of the Beany Brain! I hope today’s newsletter will bounce us up as we contemplate the upsides and challenges of being neurodivergent, a little beauty, some creativity, and just general yeehawesomeness.
Table of Contents
Photo by Abigail Munday
Haptic Feedback? NO, THANK YOU
Do you want my feedback? (Of course you do.)
Just say no to haptics!
It’s as prickly to me as a chestnut wig.
Why can it be so annoying?
Haptics is the use of touch-based feedback to communicate information. In the context of mobile apps, it means using vibrations and physical sensations to “tell” users what's happening on screen. It's often seemingly unnoticed, yet it's becoming an increasingly inseparable element of visuals and sound.
The word comes from the Greek haptikos, meaning “able to grasp or perceive”. In practice, it means your phone's motor firing a precise pattern of vibrations timed to whatever you just did.
To be honest, I don’t mind the occasional satisfying little click.
But I’m talking about Duolingo levels of phone shaking and vibrating and alerts and LOTS of it.
Does it bother you?
My son told me about haptic feedback and what to do about it. I didn’t even know that there was a possibility of disabling it.
BUT THERE IS.
Here’s what I do on my Android phone:
Open the app that’s annoying the absolute living heck out of you and making you want to throw your phone off a tall cliff.
Go to your profile in that app.
Click on the settings icon.
Go to preferences.
Unclick the haptic feedback setting.
Do a happy dance if that’s your thing.
Make yourself a cuppa and pat yourself on the back smugly. But don’t spill your cuppa in the process.
Repeat ad infinitum for all applicable apps.
If haptics helps those with certain disabilities, then I’m glad someone invented it.
For this particular hormonal woman, I’m saying nope pour moi.
Photo by this particular hormonal woman
Ha Ha Haiku
A funny haiku for you every week in every newsletter, whether it’s one of my own or one I curate for you. HA. Ha. Haiku.
Photo by Abigail Munday
Outer Accountability
I hate the word accountability.
Honestly, I do.
It can be misused and abused. (So I’ve heard. Hmmm.)
And yet…
It’s necessary sometimes, especially for those in positions of leadership. Just look at the US government! There are supposed to be THREE co-equal branches of government, which right now is not working that way. Checks and balances, anyone?
So yes, sometimes it’s an absolute necessity in dire situations.
What I’m focusing on today, though, is outer accountability for those of us who just need extra nudges to get stuff done. And maybe to help us scale the wall of awful or to at least find a foothold.
I don’t mean other people harping and shouting, like a drill sergeant.
For me personally, outer accountability can look like:
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, my husband and I do a mobility program at 6 AM (The Simplistic Mobility Method—I really recommend it). That’s outer accountability for both of us.
In addition to that, 6 days a week I work out “with” friends, all of us in our own homes. One of the ladies makes a new spreadsheet for us every month with clickable links (thank you, Ms. K!). I guess I’m kind of competitive in some ways because I love being the first one every morning to text our group that I’m finished. One of the ladies says she likes seeing my message because it spurs her on to do her workout. I never thought I would be an exercise-y kind of person, but I can say now that I am. It came in handy on my forms for my annual city-run health check in September! It was the first time I could check off that I work out regularly.
Meeting a friend for a walk to go outdoors and get exercise and fresh air.
Shaving my legs in the morning and packing my swim bag so I have the impetus to get to the pool in the evening.
Keeping a list for each day to check off bits and pieces as I go along. Helps keep me focused and then I get a wee dopamine hit from each box checked.
Telling someone I’m going to do something because then if I don’t, I can remember that they might ask me later about it.
Google calendar.
Google docs shared with others.
Creating checklists for certain things like travel.
Using messaging apps to keep in touch and plan things.
Gretchen Rubin talks about the four tendencies: rebels, questioners, upholders, and obligers. Obligers tend to do better with outer accountability. (Raises hand.)
So here’s a challenge for my own meandering jumping-bean-brain outer accountability path:
My jewelry from our trip to the UK is still in its little travel case, and I have to unzip it and hunt around for what I want every day. This has been going on for nigh on 2 months now.
Somebody please email me and remind me to put it all away in its proper home.
Or maybe just writing it here will prompt me. (I’m not holding my breath, y’all.)
Outer accountability can be a gem.
Photo by my husband
Yeehawesome!
Yeehawesome! is a happy-brain roundup in each issue of Beany Brain. What’s happening that’s good in brain land? What’s bringing me joy?
This kei truck (small-engine vehicle) that we see driving around our area with wooden black bears in the back. It always makes me smile.
Edinburgh app makes cooking easier for neurodivergent users. What a super idea! Kudos to the Scran app developers, and the 200 users they had providing input. One person with dyslexia said it was “life-changing.”
Monkeys keep pets too! A decades-long study shows 427 documented cases of primates interacting with other species. So interesting (and includes a video of a Japanese macaque riding a deer!).
Quote of the Week
To M.E.M.
With whom I discussed the plot of this book, to the alarm of those around us
(Agatha Christie’s dedication in The Sittaford Mystery)
Beany Brownie Points and Extra Bonus Funniness
(oldie but goodie)
Wonderful Wednesday
Wonderful Wednesday was a day once a year in college when they would suddenly and surprisingly call off all classes and we’d play all day. The cafeteria provided special fun food and we’d do stuff outside like slip ‘n slides and jello wrestling in sumo suits. This segment of Beany Brain is dedicated to that memory of silliness and fun—no words, just a photo from the week that I’ve taken or found that reminds me to let the joy in. Since Beany Brain is published on Wednesday every week (at least, Wednesday in Japan), I hope you enjoy this Wonderful Wednesday.
Photo by Abigail Munday
Today’s Beany-full Summary:
You can opt out of haptic feedback in apps if it’s bothering you.
Outer accountability can be misused and abused, but certain forms of it can be helpful and supportive for those of us whose inner accountability button needs a new battery.
Go forth in Beany joy. What will help you feel yeehawesome this week?
Thank you for reading this installment of Beany Brain! You’re very welcome to hop on by any old time.
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