I have never expected that the other party is sitting and staring at the screen in any Slack or chat I’ve used. An @mention will change the expectation of interrupting or not, but as someone who has used various chat programs for 24 years of my life, this ha never been an expectation I’ve had, nor one I’ve seen too frequently expressed.
What do you think has caused that expectation in your mind? Do you wish that for the people you’re chatting with? Have you worked with people who do expect that? Honestly curious.
I wonder how my growing up with it, and in chat rooms with mostly tech-savvy folks, has affected my use and expectations of it, too.
I've used Slack when contracting at companies (remote and sat in the same room)
> Have you worked with people who do expect that?
Yes. Manager expects it to be like talking to you across the room. You answer there and then. If you slack him though he doesn't expect to reply immediately and gets annoyed if you interrupt him to say you really need an answer.
> Do you wish that for the people you’re chatting with?
Yes, saves making a telephone call.
There again, if I Slack someone, it'd better be important not time-wasting.
> I have never expected that the other party is sitting and staring at the screen in any Slack or chat I’ve used.
OK, maybe not literally staring at the screen.
> What do you think has caused that expectation in your mind?
I think the structural analogue and communication style — even the name! — of chat is a verbal conversation. In a conversation, you say as little as needed and then pause for the other person to take their turn. Each utterance is pretty short so that you give the other party a chance to respond.
If you do that asynchronously, it takes forever to work through a sizeable quantity of content.
In email, the analogue is written letters. The expected asynchrony is high and in return the writing style accommodates that: each email is usually a roughly complete though with possibly some paragraphs. Since you know the person replying to you can reply to individual sections, it's OK to put out a complete thought. You don't have to shorten it to give them a chance to interject.
What do you think has caused that expectation in your mind? Do you wish that for the people you’re chatting with? Have you worked with people who do expect that? Honestly curious.
I wonder how my growing up with it, and in chat rooms with mostly tech-savvy folks, has affected my use and expectations of it, too.