5 ms·

Response time to email reveals your close friends

34 points by tilt 15y ago

madiator 15y ago
Few years back I used to reply to email much faster than I do now. Now its slower mostly because of having too much mail and procrastination. In any case, I hope they look at normalized response time rather than actual response time.
aw3c2 15y ago
I doubt that I am the sole exception. I take much more time to reply to friends (probably) because I care about what I write. So for me, this would be quite the opposite.
georgecmu 15y ago
... as well as your bosses.
cgag 15y ago
People email their friends?
- arctangent 15y ago
  Seems like a good way to communicate if you live in different timezones (or even cities, in a large enough country).
- middus 15y ago
  I just sent out an invitation for a Christmas-themed dinner to a bunch of friends via email. What's wrong about it? Or surprising? How would you let 9 people know when they're expected to show up? Call each one individually just to say next Friday 8 o'clock?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
runevault 15y ago
Seems to me that it's at best informative if you know how fast they reply to a lot of different people. They might reply faster to you FOR THEM which could still be a long period of time compared to others. Using this blindly would be silly in the extreme.
AznHisoka 15y ago
this is definitely true for me. i know a slow response might indicate a busy life, and taking time to craft a response, but it hurts psychologically when you don't receive a response until a week or so later... if at all. people should consider the effect a slow response can elicit . It's not about whether your reasons are valid or not, it's about emotional intelligence and considering how others would feel (whether that feeling is warranted or not is not the point)
X-Istence 15y ago
This doesn't hold true for me at all. I take about the same amount of time to get back to any email that comes in, 1 - 2 months :P I like email, it allows me to respond when I am ready, but at the same time friends, family, co-workers and bosses know that sending me a text or asking me over IM is going to MUCH faster than waiting for me to respond to an email.
kstenerud 15y ago
Doesn't apply to me at all. Any emails I send to my closest friends rarely ever receive a response, and vice versa. And the volume of email is far less than 30 a month. More like 1-5. In fact, I have longer and much more timely email exchanges with complete strangers than I do with my friends.
freshhawk 15y ago
Note to other commenters: No one gives a shit that you are an exception. It not surprising that there are outliers or that HN has a lot of them. You either don't understand the non-value of your anecdotal evidence or you are a narcissist who thinks we care about how you talk to your friends. I expected that most people would be talking about how weird it was that the first application considered was to give a small advantage to niche marketing. I had always thought the idea of a panopticon society was troubling but if you're telling me that I'll get better targeted spam because marketers will know who my friends are then I'm sold!
- hrktb 15y ago
  What other trivial commercial use would there be ? On an other topic there are diseases like food alergies that can only be cured by a specific diet. They can be heavily handicaping but can't be cured by medecines, so don't get any love from pharmatical companies and are ridiculously under-researched. Even though more than 1% of a population can be subjected to this kind of deceases. Why would it be weird or surprising that research in casual communication and social behavior would be primarily targeted at marketing and sales ? >you are a narcissist who thinks we care about how you talk to your friends. I guess they would be right, commenting on a post centered on how people respond to friends.

34 points by tilt 15y ago

Few years back I used to reply to email much faster than I do now. Now its slower mostly because of having too much mail and procrastination. In any case, I hope they look at normalized response time rather than actual response time.

aw3c2 15y ago

I doubt that I am the sole exception. I take much more time to reply to friends (probably) because I care about what I write. So for me, this would be quite the opposite.

georgecmu 15y ago

... as well as your bosses.

cgag 15y ago

People email their friends?

arctangent 15y ago
Seems like a good way to communicate if you live in different timezones (or even cities, in a large enough country).
middus 15y ago
I just sent out an invitation for a Christmas-themed dinner to a bunch of friends via email. What's wrong about it? Or surprising? How would you let 9 people know when they're expected to show up? Call each one individually just to say next Friday 8 o'clock?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

runevault 15y ago

Seems to me that it's at best informative if you know how fast they reply to a lot of different people. They might reply faster to you FOR THEM which could still be a long period of time compared to others. Using this blindly would be silly in the extreme.

AznHisoka 15y ago

this is definitely true for me. i know a slow response might indicate a busy life, and taking time to craft a response, but it hurts psychologically when you don't receive a response until a week or so later... if at all. people should consider the effect a slow response can elicit . It's not about whether your reasons are valid or not, it's about emotional intelligence and considering how others would feel (whether that feeling is warranted or not is not the point)

X-Istence 15y ago

This doesn't hold true for me at all. I take about the same amount of time to get back to any email that comes in, 1 - 2 months :P I like email, it allows me to respond when I am ready, but at the same time friends, family, co-workers and bosses know that sending me a text or asking me over IM is going to MUCH faster than waiting for me to respond to an email.

kstenerud 15y ago

Doesn't apply to me at all. Any emails I send to my closest friends rarely ever receive a response, and vice versa. And the volume of email is far less than 30 a month. More like 1-5. In fact, I have longer and much more timely email exchanges with complete strangers than I do with my friends.

freshhawk 15y ago

Note to other commenters: No one gives a shit that you are an exception. It not surprising that there are outliers or that HN has a lot of them. You either don't understand the non-value of your anecdotal evidence or you are a narcissist who thinks we care about how you talk to your friends. I expected that most people would be talking about how weird it was that the first application considered was to give a small advantage to niche marketing. I had always thought the idea of a panopticon society was troubling but if you're telling me that I'll get better targeted spam because marketers will know who my friends are then I'm sold!

hrktb 15y ago
What other trivial commercial use would there be ? On an other topic there are diseases like food alergies that can only be cured by a specific diet. They can be heavily handicaping but can't be cured by medecines, so don't get any love from pharmatical companies and are ridiculously under-researched. Even though more than 1% of a population can be subjected to this kind of deceases. Why would it be weird or surprising that research in casual communication and social behavior would be primarily targeted at marketing and sales ? >you are a narcissist who thinks we care about how you talk to your friends. I guess they would be right, commenting on a post centered on how people respond to friends.