[zby]

It is quite frustrating that we have these discussions over and over again. Asynchronous communication is great - but it is not better than synchronous communication in some universal way. It depends. Personally I am very sensitive to interruptions - so I lean towards asynchronous. But when you are doing something and you really need to get some information from someone to proceed - then getting his response immediately means that your work is not interrupted. The other person is - but it is a trade off. In a team you have to make these trade-offs. It can be hard - because it takes from one side and gives to the other - people would like to be able to interrupt others and not be interrupted themselves. And it is even more complicated by the fact that some jobs and some people are more sensitive to interruptions and others are less - so it is hard to make fair rules about it. But it is a real trade-off to be made.

UPDATE: Or take interactivity - a conversation is really powerful way of communicating. How a computer geek could even claim that asynchronous communication is always better - is he still using batch processors to run his jobs typing everything upfront and they waiting for the full run before he can fix his syntax errors?

[nottorp]

Umm both email and instant messaging are as asynchronous or synchronous as you want to make them...

[n4r9]

For some reason, IM encourages people to send superficial quickfire messages, which is very inefficient if one party is busy.

The classic example is

Colleague: "Hi".

One hour passes

You: "Hey - what's up, can I help you with something?"

10 minutes pass

Colleague: "Yeah I was wondering if I could ask you about Foo"

One hour passes

You: "Sure, what do you need to know?"

Next day

Colleague: "I'm trying to export but it's not working."

One hour passes

You: "Okay... Is it giving you any error messages? Please give me as much info as you can in one go!"

etc...

[vel0city]

I've pressed people who chat this way with me to change, and usually it seems people get it once they get shown how unproductive this kind of conversation is.

Just ask me your question. Feel free to start with pleasantries if that's your style, but get to your point or the ask on the first message.

https://nohello.net/en/

[nottorp]

I never answer hellos. That tends to teach people.

[theshrike79]

This is why you reply with this: https://nohello.net/en/

It's purely a cultural thing, people from some cultures find it rude to get to the point, so they need to have this "hi, how are you" -preamble every time, even if the other person is on a completely different timezone, which makes every chat take 2 days.

[Our_Benefactors]

I like to put this as my slack status for a while when I join a new job. It tells my coworkers I mean business, and sets healthy communication patterns right out of the gate.

[rkomorn]

I'm a big proponent of the whole "just start with your question" thing but anytime someone replies to a "hello" with just a link to that page, they immediately come across as a jerk.

[theshrike79]

Or I'm setting boundaries.

Getting a "hello" from your superior with nothing else is akin to "come to my office first thing tomorrow morning" without extra context.

That day is ruined as well as the next one unless the manager is 5000% explicit that it's a good thing.

[rkomorn]

If your way of setting boundaries is to reply to a message with a URL, I consider you a jerk.

It's got nothing to do with your boundaries.

[ivanjermakov]

Interesting. I write messages in Teams about the same way I write emails. Some people prefer splitting each sentence in a separate message, some keep the whole body as one.

Email just nudges to send whole body at once because it usually doesn't have a synchronous chat UI.

[stared]

This.

Also, even if responses are just 20 second after each, there is this constant context switching, which takes more time and attention that if we took literally any other method (in person, email or call).

[lostlogin]

There is the opposite too, which is just as bad. The stream of consciousness messaging.

‘Hi’ ‘I’m’ ‘Trying to get the’ ‘File’ ‘But’ ‘I’ ‘Need’

Etc etc and it’s 20 messages before you have any idea what’s going on. The deluge of notifications is distraction.

[jszymborski]

IMO, this is because every email is a named, searchable thread. Sure Slack, MS Teams, Discord, etc... have threads but they sort of get washed away in the stream of messages imho.

[AuthAuth]

This type of communication style would be a problem on any communication medium. The problem needs to be fixed at the user level.

[n4r9]

I dunno, there's something about email that makes a lot of people write more thoughtful and comprehensive messages. Not everyone, obviously. But it feels more like writing a letter - you're not expecting a reply within minutes.

[AuthAuth]

You're right but thats because of the social rules around email. With instant messaging people are very used to casually using it in their day to day life so you're fighting against that. But I still think its worth doing

[n4r9]

It might be partly social rules but I think a lot is down to UI/UX and the underlying protocol. Email clients by and large look very different to chat clients. When you draft a new email you're given a bit white space that expands easily as your message grows, rather than (at least on phones) a tiny box that conceals all but the last few lines. There are prominent options about whether to reply, reply-all, or to cc further recipients. You can even bcc people. It's normal to have multiple separate mail threads with someone, rather than a chat window that contains every message you've ever sent. You typically send emails to an address, but you send IMs to an account. Companies will email you with periodic newsletters, sometimes unasked for. And so on!