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I have real-time conversations via email, too. The difference is in the expectations of the participants. It's subtle and social. I wouldn't just walk away f

by dkarl 17y ago

I have real-time conversations via email, too. The difference is in the expectations of the participants. It's subtle and social. I wouldn't just walk away from a fast-running IM conversation to go to lunch without saying something to let the other person know I was going to be gone for a while. That would be rude. Doubly so on the phone. You don't just hang up on somebody in the middle of a conversation unless you're pissed at them. Email is different. Nobody thinks it's weird or rude if you disappear from an email conversation for ten minutes. After sending an email, you can even walk away from your computer and not check your email again for hours, unless the content of your message indicated otherwise. In contrast, an IM that isn't a one-off message says, "If you're there and available, I would like to have a real-time chat with you." Each mode of communication sets different expectations. It's quite handy. If you unify everything into a single mode of communication, then you have to set expectations explicitly. "Hi, Joe. Can you tell me XYZ? Please reply when you are available to have an interactive real-time conversation with me." "Hi, Joe. Can you tell me XYZ? Please reply at your leisure. I may not be available immediately to discuss your reply but will respond at some point if I have further questions." See the difference? Of course, the different modes of communication don't mean the same things to everybody. I expect every company and every group of friends has a slightly different IM culture, for instance.

skorgu 17y ago
Your conversational partners are substantially more polite than mine :) It's not even remotely uncommon for people in my circle to leave an IM or even a group chat in the middle. We all have dozens of things going on at any given time and it's expected that, unless the conversation is Really Important it will take second fiddle to the emergency of the moment. So for us all conversations implicitly fit into your second category unless pretty explicitly stated already. I concede, however, that if your typical behavior doesn't fit this model already wave is likely to be somewhere between useless and actively frustrating.

by dkarl 17y ago

skorgu 17y ago

Your conversational partners are substantially more polite than mine :) It's not even remotely uncommon for people in my circle to leave an IM or even a group chat in the middle. We all have dozens of things going on at any given time and it's expected that, unless the conversation is Really Important it will take second fiddle to the emergency of the moment. So for us all conversations implicitly fit into your second category unless pretty explicitly stated already. I concede, however, that if your typical behavior doesn't fit this model already wave is likely to be somewhere between useless and actively frustrating.