4 ms·
The finer point to me is that sometimes there are perfectly valid reasons you wouldn't want to express yourself by email or online and I don't think that has an
by rabbyte 12y ago
The finer point to me is that sometimes there are perfectly valid reasons you wouldn't want to express yourself by email or online and I don't think that has anything to do with age. We have evolved to understand face-to-face communication. It's an effective way to relay a thought. People can waste your time through any media.
- adyus 12y agoThat's a good point. We still require and enjoy direct interaction, as well we should. However, as "multitasking" becomes more popular, the ability to communicate asynchronously becomes more important. Of course important things should be discussed face to face (not by phone or webcam either), but meetings should not always be confused with actual work.
- greenyoda 12y ago"People can waste your time through any media." That's true, but it's much easier to cut your losses with an e-mail than with a face to face conversation. If, after reading the first couple of sentences of an e-mail, you decide that the sender is an idiot and reading his message is a waste of time, you can just hit delete (or reply, "Sorry, not interested") and move on to the next thing. However, if you've agreed to meet with somebody, and thirty seconds into the meeting you've come to the same conclusion, most people would be too polite to ruthlessly tell the person to their face that the meeting is pointless, and then get up and leave. (Also, if the meeting is not in your own office, you'll have expended time just to get there.) This is even true of a phone call: most people are too polite to hang up on someone, except maybe a telemarketer. If someone wants me to make time to meet with them in person, they should be able to clearly express the purpose of the meeting in a few lines of text beforehand.