My problem with slack is that some of my co-workers are very good with it. Some are super busy so many very long half attention conversations are how they think they're very effective (I end up in this group because of my role), and the rest react like alcoholics when you suggest going without slack, it's impossible to hold that discusion with them.
For the first group, often managers, it works well. For the second group lots of ad hoc video chats help take multi day discussions into 10 minutes chats and resolve arguments amazingly fast.
For the third group, I don't know. Had a coworker who was complaining about how much they paid attention to work. When we dug into it they were reading slack constantly over the weekend, partially cause their job was their family. We encouraged them not to do that, uninstall slack on the weekends. They were a lot happier very quickly. A few months later they quit :). I believe they would have not quit if they hadn't been so tied to their jobs for the 4 years before from talking to them.
Anecdata I know.
Not to say text based communication isn't quite useful. I love it. But it's not the only form and I really dislike how tied to the company slack tricks you into being. A false sense of community that evaporates the instant you go against it, like being electronically shunned. I think this leads to a lot of disgruntlement where people don't want to lose their "friends" (coworkers) but do hate their jobs. So they stay and get real angry. It's not the only reason it happens but it does exacerbate issues.
For the first group, often managers, it works well. For the second group lots of ad hoc video chats help take multi day discussions into 10 minutes chats and resolve arguments amazingly fast.
For the third group, I don't know. Had a coworker who was complaining about how much they paid attention to work. When we dug into it they were reading slack constantly over the weekend, partially cause their job was their family. We encouraged them not to do that, uninstall slack on the weekends. They were a lot happier very quickly. A few months later they quit :). I believe they would have not quit if they hadn't been so tied to their jobs for the 4 years before from talking to them.
Anecdata I know.
Not to say text based communication isn't quite useful. I love it. But it's not the only form and I really dislike how tied to the company slack tricks you into being. A false sense of community that evaporates the instant you go against it, like being electronically shunned. I think this leads to a lot of disgruntlement where people don't want to lose their "friends" (coworkers) but do hate their jobs. So they stay and get real angry. It's not the only reason it happens but it does exacerbate issues.