[ninalanyon]

I was wrong, not an infrequent occurrence. It was Asimov, as others suggested:

Here's the ChatGPT question and answer:

Which SF author wrote a story in which communication speed over astronomical distances was made faster by sending messages continually instead of waiting for a reply? In the story it was pointed out that this is how women exchange news on the telephone.

ChatGPT said:

The story you're thinking of is “My Son, the Physicist” by Isaac Asimov (1962). In it, a communications engineer struggles with the long delays of radio messages to Pluto (about 12 hours one way). His mother suggests what women do on the telephone: “Just keep talking”—transmit continuously rather than wait for a reply—effectively creating a live conversation despite the latency en.wikipedia.org+1tvtropes.org+1 .

This clever idea highlights a real aspect of human communication—especially on the phone—where continuous exchange helps bridge delays, and adapts it to an interplanetary scale. So yes, Asimov used that domestic analogy to demonstrate a practical solution to astronomical message delays.