5 ms·

Slack makes this very difficult and at least for me, is a primary cause of anxiety and fear of missing out I unironically wonder how widespread this problem is

by dvtrn 8y ago

Slack makes this very difficult and at least for me, is a primary cause of anxiety and fear of missing out I unironically wonder how widespread this problem is among the specific group of people who blame their lack of productivity on Slack, or failing that, how many people would admit their FOMO is enhanced by chat apps. So many of the "productivity killing" problems I hear people griping about with Slack aren't really issues with slack, but human issues with boundaries of what we allow to take our attention not being defined, and ultimately, yes: FOMO. Things are going to get missed, you're going to come in late to certain conversations, but I often wonder do you need to be on the bleeding edge of these talks if they don't directly relate to you or even reside in the periphery of your responsibility radius? Probably not, I would wager-but tl;dr very rarely does it seem like Slack is the cause of productivity problems, it just seems the convenient scapegoat. Especially since: "work never happens in a vacuum" (FTA) is a statement that in my opinion, cuts both ways.

jedberg 8y ago
> So many of the "productivity killing" problems I hear people griping about with Slack aren't really issues with slack, They're not specific to Slack, but they are specific to the existence of an official real time chat app. The boss expects you to read the chat, and if you just ignore it, you'll get in trouble and be deemed "irresponsible" if you aren't acting on it and participating in it.
- lunchables 8y ago
  I think this implicit assumption of how to use Slack is the problem. The only thing that we expect someone to respond to on Slack is an @ or a dm. Anything else is analogous to a conversation that happened in a room you either weren't in, or had your headphones on. An @ is like someone walking over and tapping you and asking you to take your headphones off and join the conversation and a dm is like walking into your office and asking you something.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  That really sounds like the worst environment to be in, where "the chat" replaces actual planning meetings where assignments are delegated out and expectations set.
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
Not quite sure I understand your argument. You seem to be saying Slack is a scapegoat, but say things like "Things are going to get missed, you're going to come in late to certain conversations, but I often wonder do you need to be on the bleeding edge of these talks if they don't directly relate to you or even reside in the periphery of your responsibility radius?" I mean, you're right, you probably don't need to be on that edge, but Slack is this constant reminder of oftentimes BOTH important and unimportant issues, and they are difficult to separate so your attention is distracted regardless. It's like saying "that endless supply of vodka in the liquor cabinet didn't make you an alcoholic." True, but if one DOES have a tendency to drink toward excess, getting rid of that liquor cabinet would be a great first step.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  Slack is this constant reminder of oftentimes BOTH important and unimportant issues, and they are difficult to separate so your attention is distracted regardless. But the platform has a remedy for this does it not? In allowing you to turn on notifications for highlight words that you specify? Seems reasonable to me that if one wants to be alerted of conversations happening around certain topics, but work in peace without dings and bells for everything else, this feature works quite well in solving that split of attention between relevant and not relevant, no? This may be an example of what I mean by boundaries; the user is completely able to define a boundary of distractions, turn them off, or turn them off but for certain highlight words so that they get notifications for, and are able to respond in a timely manner when a discussion comes up that might appreciate their input as a knowledge-holder/SME on the topic. Otherwise they continue to work unperturbed. Is this a feature that people just don't know about or forgo using for some other reason, in your opinion?
hw 8y ago
> Things are going to get missed Hit the nail on the head here. Things will get missed. The nice thing about Slack is that you can at least catch up with some conversations you missed at the end of day or in your free time. When you miss an IRL meeting, it's much harder to catch up. FOMO will be an even bigger problem when people start setting up meetings, especially ones where you aren't invited to or you can't attend because you're in another meeting.
- beberlei 8y ago
  We don't stop communicating since we unslacked though. Instead we now moved discussions more to Github PRs+issues and Basecamp. So its still possible to read up, but it feels more structured around certain tasks.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    it feels more structured around certain tasks. This might be the key to whatever becomes the big "Slack-killer", assuming one comes around: Real-time-ish chat that with respects to workflow and UI/UX are structured around action-items (be they user stories, support tickets, or deployment artifacts), easily searchable, with support for taxonomy.
beberlei 8y ago
Author here. Working as the founder mostly alone (or relying on part time freelancers) for a long time I do have control issues that could fuel FOMO. However how is the "Unread message" status icon, the notifications and e-mails about pings that are sent by default (Yes, you can deactivate them) not an indicator that by default Slack wants you to look into the program as often as possible. Maybe I am using it wrong, but I don't want to fight the defaults of notification overload all the time. For example on Linux you cant even disable the system tray icon, I wrote a blog post with a hack to do this a few month ago: https://beberlei.de/2017/07/29/hide_slack_unread_and_highlight_tray_icon_on_ubuntu_linux.html https://beberlei.de/2017/07/29/hide_slack_unread_and_highlig...
- dvtrn 8y ago
  However how is the "Unread message" status icon, the notifications and e-mails about pings that are sent by default (Yes, you can deactivate them) not an indicator that by default Slack wants you to look into the program as often as possible. That's a good point, I know the nagging feeling you speak of just looking at my own iPhone and some of the messages that have queued up for my attention. I'm not sure if there is really a way to reconcile that against our FOMO tendencies that technology seems to only be exacerbating-so I will concede that point but only so much. Yes the technology exacerbates the need to check in and remain accessible even across high latency channels (like distance, time zones, etc), but IMO only in the way that gravity also exacerbates the possibility that you will smash your finger with a hammer when trying to drive a nail. One can admit that they might smash a finger when trying to drive nails, but they would still reasonably operate the hammer in a way that minimizes smashed fingers while still using the tool for its intended and designed purpose. I propose a similar view for our communication stacks.
jonahx 8y ago
This feels like the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. Of course you can assign moral blame however you please, but the relevant "policy" question (in both the gun case and the slack case) is empirical. You could measure the productivity of a single team with and without slack and see how things compare. My guess is Slack would not fare well in that experiment, but I've never done it.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  Of course you can assign moral blame however you please, but the relevant "policy" question (in both the gun case and the slack case) is empirical. You absolutely can but if there's something about my post that insinuates any sort of 'moral' blame that a comparison to the "Guns don't kill people" trope (there's probably a better word for this) is warranted, then I've massively failed to express my intent clearly. Allow me to unpack this a bit for clarity. The logical framework for "Slack doesn't disrupt your productivity, you allow your productivity to be disrupted" is certainly there, but that's about where the comparison begins and ends to the "Guns don't kill people" argument. What I instead mean is tools like Slack and other real-time persistent chat apps definitely exacerbate FOMO and the need to reply, respond or react in someway to a notification. Their express function is to notify, to that end they're doing what we effectively ask them to do by using them in our workplaces. Note: I'm speaking rather broadly here, I'm quite aware you very rarely have a choice in the matter when joining a new company what chat service you're stuck with using. But as I mentioned in another comment, they have this capacity about as much as a hammer has the capacity to injure a user trying to drive nails and hang a picture. My curiosity of how we effectively 'blame' (pretend I'm speaking with a velvet glove here when I say blame I mean it as positively and delicately as possible) Slack for breaking our concentration is with the hammer analogy in mind. Certainly it has the capacity to disrupt but just like one would probably hold and use a hammer delicately enough to avoid harming themselves but deliberately enough to drive a nail, our comms stacks can easily be wielded just as well. (That was a bunch of words up there above, but let me raise my hand right now and admit that I am absolutely guilty of checking every notification I see come in and breaking my own flow, it's why I even hold this position).
  - 8y ago

by dvtrn 8y ago

jedberg 8y ago

> So many of the "productivity killing" problems I hear people griping about with Slack aren't really issues with slack, They're not specific to Slack, but they are specific to the existence of an official real time chat app. The boss expects you to read the chat, and if you just ignore it, you'll get in trouble and be deemed "irresponsible" if you aren't acting on it and participating in it.

lunchables 8y ago
I think this implicit assumption of how to use Slack is the problem. The only thing that we expect someone to respond to on Slack is an @ or a dm. Anything else is analogous to a conversation that happened in a room you either weren't in, or had your headphones on. An @ is like someone walking over and tapping you and asking you to take your headphones off and join the conversation and a dm is like walking into your office and asking you something.
dvtrn 8y ago
That really sounds like the worst environment to be in, where "the chat" replaces actual planning meetings where assignments are delegated out and expectations set.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

Not quite sure I understand your argument. You seem to be saying Slack is a scapegoat, but say things like "Things are going to get missed, you're going to come in late to certain conversations, but I often wonder do you need to be on the bleeding edge of these talks if they don't directly relate to you or even reside in the periphery of your responsibility radius?" I mean, you're right, you probably don't need to be on that edge, but Slack is this constant reminder of oftentimes BOTH important and unimportant issues, and they are difficult to separate so your attention is distracted regardless. It's like saying "that endless supply of vodka in the liquor cabinet didn't make you an alcoholic." True, but if one DOES have a tendency to drink toward excess, getting rid of that liquor cabinet would be a great first step.

dvtrn 8y ago
Slack is this constant reminder of oftentimes BOTH important and unimportant issues, and they are difficult to separate so your attention is distracted regardless. But the platform has a remedy for this does it not? In allowing you to turn on notifications for highlight words that you specify? Seems reasonable to me that if one wants to be alerted of conversations happening around certain topics, but work in peace without dings and bells for everything else, this feature works quite well in solving that split of attention between relevant and not relevant, no? This may be an example of what I mean by boundaries; the user is completely able to define a boundary of distractions, turn them off, or turn them off but for certain highlight words so that they get notifications for, and are able to respond in a timely manner when a discussion comes up that might appreciate their input as a knowledge-holder/SME on the topic. Otherwise they continue to work unperturbed. Is this a feature that people just don't know about or forgo using for some other reason, in your opinion?

hw 8y ago

> Things are going to get missed Hit the nail on the head here. Things will get missed. The nice thing about Slack is that you can at least catch up with some conversations you missed at the end of day or in your free time. When you miss an IRL meeting, it's much harder to catch up. FOMO will be an even bigger problem when people start setting up meetings, especially ones where you aren't invited to or you can't attend because you're in another meeting.

beberlei 8y ago
We don't stop communicating since we unslacked though. Instead we now moved discussions more to Github PRs+issues and Basecamp. So its still possible to read up, but it feels more structured around certain tasks.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  it feels more structured around certain tasks. This might be the key to whatever becomes the big "Slack-killer", assuming one comes around: Real-time-ish chat that with respects to workflow and UI/UX are structured around action-items (be they user stories, support tickets, or deployment artifacts), easily searchable, with support for taxonomy.

beberlei 8y ago

Author here. Working as the founder mostly alone (or relying on part time freelancers) for a long time I do have control issues that could fuel FOMO. However how is the "Unread message" status icon, the notifications and e-mails about pings that are sent by default (Yes, you can deactivate them) not an indicator that by default Slack wants you to look into the program as often as possible. Maybe I am using it wrong, but I don't want to fight the defaults of notification overload all the time. For example on Linux you cant even disable the system tray icon, I wrote a blog post with a hack to do this a few month ago: https://beberlei.de/2017/07/29/hide_slack_unread_and_highlight_tray_icon_on_ubuntu_linux.html https://beberlei.de/2017/07/29/hide_slack_unread_and_highlig...

dvtrn 8y ago
However how is the "Unread message" status icon, the notifications and e-mails about pings that are sent by default (Yes, you can deactivate them) not an indicator that by default Slack wants you to look into the program as often as possible. That's a good point, I know the nagging feeling you speak of just looking at my own iPhone and some of the messages that have queued up for my attention. I'm not sure if there is really a way to reconcile that against our FOMO tendencies that technology seems to only be exacerbating-so I will concede that point but only so much. Yes the technology exacerbates the need to check in and remain accessible even across high latency channels (like distance, time zones, etc), but IMO only in the way that gravity also exacerbates the possibility that you will smash your finger with a hammer when trying to drive a nail. One can admit that they might smash a finger when trying to drive nails, but they would still reasonably operate the hammer in a way that minimizes smashed fingers while still using the tool for its intended and designed purpose. I propose a similar view for our communication stacks.

jonahx 8y ago

This feels like the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. Of course you can assign moral blame however you please, but the relevant "policy" question (in both the gun case and the slack case) is empirical. You could measure the productivity of a single team with and without slack and see how things compare. My guess is Slack would not fare well in that experiment, but I've never done it.

dvtrn 8y ago
Of course you can assign moral blame however you please, but the relevant "policy" question (in both the gun case and the slack case) is empirical. You absolutely can but if there's something about my post that insinuates any sort of 'moral' blame that a comparison to the "Guns don't kill people" trope (there's probably a better word for this) is warranted, then I've massively failed to express my intent clearly. Allow me to unpack this a bit for clarity. The logical framework for "Slack doesn't disrupt your productivity, you allow your productivity to be disrupted" is certainly there, but that's about where the comparison begins and ends to the "Guns don't kill people" argument. What I instead mean is tools like Slack and other real-time persistent chat apps definitely exacerbate FOMO and the need to reply, respond or react in someway to a notification. Their express function is to notify, to that end they're doing what we effectively ask them to do by using them in our workplaces. Note: I'm speaking rather broadly here, I'm quite aware you very rarely have a choice in the matter when joining a new company what chat service you're stuck with using. But as I mentioned in another comment, they have this capacity about as much as a hammer has the capacity to injure a user trying to drive nails and hang a picture. My curiosity of how we effectively 'blame' (pretend I'm speaking with a velvet glove here when I say blame I mean it as positively and delicately as possible) Slack for breaking our concentration is with the hammer analogy in mind. Certainly it has the capacity to disrupt but just like one would probably hold and use a hammer delicately enough to avoid harming themselves but deliberately enough to drive a nail, our comms stacks can easily be wielded just as well. (That was a bunch of words up there above, but let me raise my hand right now and admit that I am absolutely guilty of checking every notification I see come in and breaking my own flow, it's why I even hold this position).
- 8y ago