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There's a more basic problem, here, that'd be better expressed without couching it in the ever popular introvert/extrovert false dichotomy (aside: people really

by zzalpha 10y ago

There's a more basic problem, here, that'd be better expressed without couching it in the ever popular introvert/extrovert false dichotomy (aside: people really love picking labels for themselves): instant messaging tools don't offer features to help users who aren't immediately available and need to delay replies until later. Give me tools to queue up a backlog, and to indicate to the sender I'm unavailable. Give me a way to easily review batched messages and reply to them as a group or individually (maybe by making it easy to take batched messages and quote them in an email response). Let me set my phone to queue up alerts until a specific time or time interval and then alert on the group. I'm sure there's many other, better ideas, but you get the idea. The immediacy of instant messaging is incredibly useful. But we need it to adapt to non-immediate replies as well, and today that's just not that easy.

ams6110 10y ago
Sounds very complicated. IMs for me are generally something I respond to immediately, or not at all. And that seems to be the normal pattern for most people I interact with on that medium.
- zzalpha 10y ago
  Definitely not my use case. I frequently get instant messages from friends and family when I'm unavailable to reply (at work, at a movie, hanging out with friends and don't want to be impolite, etc). That doesn't mean I don't want to reply, I just can't right away. I can't imagine I'm unique in that regard.
  - ryukafalz 10y ago
    >I can't imagine I'm unique in that regard. You're not, I do basically the same thing. Personally I really wish read receipts hadn't caught on so much - they were toxic in email and they're still toxic here. Delivery receipts are fine, they give you an indication that the message hasn't been lost in transit. But read receipts put too much pressure on the recipient for a quick response, because the other person knows they've already read the message.
- coldtea 10y ago
  You'd be surprised. Especially if by IM we also include IM tools like Slack, where you might get messages from 20+ people every day.
roystonvassey 10y ago
I use the 'status' feature on IM apps to indicate that I am not using the service actively. I find this works well to queue messages I want to respond to until later.
dvfjsdhgfv 10y ago
You're spot on. As it is now, having FB display "seen on HH:MM" does introduce strong pressure on the recipient. After all, in real life it's considered rude not to reply immediately after you've heard a request.
- pasbesoin 10y ago
  Yes. In many circumstances, many people want varying, controllable degrees of orthogonality between their social, and professional, communications and relationships. "seen on HH:MM" and the like become dark patterns -- pushing us to serve the platform, rather than the platform to serve us. (A somewhat similar circumstance, with much debate and several perspectives, on the "true names" controversy of some years ago. "What" versus "who". Spam control. Content versus appearance. Personal versus professional. Public versus private. "True name" policies turned a lot of this from "opt in" to "opt out", or no choice whatsoever. Social media went from being something under the user's control with respect to their own participation, to a thorn in many users' sides.)

by zzalpha 10y ago

ams6110 10y ago

Sounds very complicated. IMs for me are generally something I respond to immediately, or not at all. And that seems to be the normal pattern for most people I interact with on that medium.

zzalpha 10y ago
Definitely not my use case. I frequently get instant messages from friends and family when I'm unavailable to reply (at work, at a movie, hanging out with friends and don't want to be impolite, etc). That doesn't mean I don't want to reply, I just can't right away. I can't imagine I'm unique in that regard.
- ryukafalz 10y ago
  >I can't imagine I'm unique in that regard. You're not, I do basically the same thing. Personally I really wish read receipts hadn't caught on so much - they were toxic in email and they're still toxic here. Delivery receipts are fine, they give you an indication that the message hasn't been lost in transit. But read receipts put too much pressure on the recipient for a quick response, because the other person knows they've already read the message.
coldtea 10y ago
You'd be surprised. Especially if by IM we also include IM tools like Slack, where you might get messages from 20+ people every day.

roystonvassey 10y ago

I use the 'status' feature on IM apps to indicate that I am not using the service actively. I find this works well to queue messages I want to respond to until later.

dvfjsdhgfv 10y ago

You're spot on. As it is now, having FB display "seen on HH:MM" does introduce strong pressure on the recipient. After all, in real life it's considered rude not to reply immediately after you've heard a request.

pasbesoin 10y ago
Yes. In many circumstances, many people want varying, controllable degrees of orthogonality between their social, and professional, communications and relationships. "seen on HH:MM" and the like become dark patterns -- pushing us to serve the platform, rather than the platform to serve us. (A somewhat similar circumstance, with much debate and several perspectives, on the "true names" controversy of some years ago. "What" versus "who". Spam control. Content versus appearance. Personal versus professional. Public versus private. "True name" policies turned a lot of this from "opt in" to "opt out", or no choice whatsoever. Social media went from being something under the user's control with respect to their own participation, to a thorn in many users' sides.)