Phone calls are my main form of synchronous communication aside from face-to-face conversations; sometimes chat and even much more relatively rarely, text messages. One thing that I’ve discovered about myself is that, because I often do participate in phone calls with people I like a lot (e.g. people I find interesting) that I don’t often see regularly in-person, I reasonably expect any phone call to take a lot of time. And because I anticipate calls to last a relatively long amount of time, there’s a significant ‘activation energy’ that I have to be willing to provide to willingly call someone or even answer their call. Ironically, this often leads to less frequent calls and even greater activation energy eventually required.
Another thing I discovered that is relatively idiosyncratic to me is that I like writing, I like reading, and I’m confident that I can explain even fairly complicated ideas clearly. I have often been annoyed by people calling me after several back-and-forth emails. I certainly understand the impulse tho as I have done that myself when I thought that someone was not providing sufficient context in writing. I’m much more understanding of people have differing preferences, and even capabilities, with respect to different forms of communication.
Synchronous communication is, assuming good faith among all participants, much more likely to more rapidly converge to mutual understanding. But it’s relatively costly. Everyone has to be available at the same time, and possibly at the same place. Demands or requests for synchronous communication can potentially (and often do) interrupt other activity, which can be pretty expensive even if the demand is refused or the request denied, depending on the activity.
One of the most significant benefits of asynchronous communication – in my preferences – is that, because the communication has to be buffered or queued, there’s a record of it that I can access and potentially save to access arbitrarily later. I often have to interrupt important synchronous communications to take notes or remind myself of some commitment I’ve made in the course of that communication. That’s generally much easier to handle with asynchronous communications.
OK. I think LWers (up to some years ago including myself) and millenials (which I am not; I’m 38) tend to overestimate the benefits and underestimate the drawbacks of asynchronous communications. I also prefer not being interrupted and having a record of what I’ve talked about, all else being equal, but it seems kind of ridiculous to me that I have to actively tell people “just make a damn phone call” when they need a response to something within 5 minutes. As long as you’re actually considering which one to use each time, you’re probably fine.
(Also, the lack of records of synchronous communications seems like largely a solvable technical problem, and is sometimes a feature rather than a bug, if one doesn’t want those records to be shared with certain audiences and doesn’t want to spend the effort to properly secure them.)
I’m 38 too! I thought I was a millennial, at least under some definitions.
… it seems kind of ridiculous to me that I have to actively tell people “just make a damn phone call” when they need a response to something within 5 minutes.
I agree with this! We probably don’t disagree as much you seemed to think. For my most common forms of asynchronous communication, my own personal commitment is roughly to respond with 24 hours. For some chat messages, I’ll potentially respond more quickly. Sometimes I don’t respond to a text or a missed call for several days. I definitely don’t commit to answering letters or cards more quickly than several multiples of the ‘lag’ (e.g. several days) either.
Also, the lack of records of synchronous communications seems like largely a solvable technical problem
A audio or video recording is much less useful than text records (accessible via computer). Searching alone is much harder. Even text messages, which I can’t as easily access from my computer, are less useful for that reason than emails.
I do agree that non-records can be useful. I appreciate that, generally, my face to face conversations aren’t recorded, and thus need to be secured as you mentioned. But I also lament that lack of records for some conversations as well.
A audio or video recording is much less useful than text records (accessible via computer). Searching alone is much harder. Even text messages, which I can’t as easily access from my computer, are less useful for that reason than emails.
Audio to text transcription is really quite good these days. I didn’t mean to say it was a solved problem… just that the reason it isn’t is not a lack of the basic technological capabilities required.
Asynchronicity is not always better than synchronicity. I would encourage you to think about the cases in which each could be better than the other.
I agree and I have thought about that – a lot!
Phone calls are my main form of synchronous communication aside from face-to-face conversations; sometimes chat and even much more relatively rarely, text messages. One thing that I’ve discovered about myself is that, because I often do participate in phone calls with people I like a lot (e.g. people I find interesting) that I don’t often see regularly in-person, I reasonably expect any phone call to take a lot of time. And because I anticipate calls to last a relatively long amount of time, there’s a significant ‘activation energy’ that I have to be willing to provide to willingly call someone or even answer their call. Ironically, this often leads to less frequent calls and even greater activation energy eventually required.
Another thing I discovered that is relatively idiosyncratic to me is that I like writing, I like reading, and I’m confident that I can explain even fairly complicated ideas clearly. I have often been annoyed by people calling me after several back-and-forth emails. I certainly understand the impulse tho as I have done that myself when I thought that someone was not providing sufficient context in writing. I’m much more understanding of people have differing preferences, and even capabilities, with respect to different forms of communication.
Synchronous communication is, assuming good faith among all participants, much more likely to more rapidly converge to mutual understanding. But it’s relatively costly. Everyone has to be available at the same time, and possibly at the same place. Demands or requests for synchronous communication can potentially (and often do) interrupt other activity, which can be pretty expensive even if the demand is refused or the request denied, depending on the activity.
One of the most significant benefits of asynchronous communication – in my preferences – is that, because the communication has to be buffered or queued, there’s a record of it that I can access and potentially save to access arbitrarily later. I often have to interrupt important synchronous communications to take notes or remind myself of some commitment I’ve made in the course of that communication. That’s generally much easier to handle with asynchronous communications.
OK. I think LWers (up to some years ago including myself) and millenials (which I am not; I’m 38) tend to overestimate the benefits and underestimate the drawbacks of asynchronous communications. I also prefer not being interrupted and having a record of what I’ve talked about, all else being equal, but it seems kind of ridiculous to me that I have to actively tell people “just make a damn phone call” when they need a response to something within 5 minutes. As long as you’re actually considering which one to use each time, you’re probably fine.
(Also, the lack of records of synchronous communications seems like largely a solvable technical problem, and is sometimes a feature rather than a bug, if one doesn’t want those records to be shared with certain audiences and doesn’t want to spend the effort to properly secure them.)
I’m 38 too! I thought I was a millennial, at least under some definitions.
I agree with this! We probably don’t disagree as much you seemed to think. For my most common forms of asynchronous communication, my own personal commitment is roughly to respond with 24 hours. For some chat messages, I’ll potentially respond more quickly. Sometimes I don’t respond to a text or a missed call for several days. I definitely don’t commit to answering letters or cards more quickly than several multiples of the ‘lag’ (e.g. several days) either.
A audio or video recording is much less useful than text records (accessible via computer). Searching alone is much harder. Even text messages, which I can’t as easily access from my computer, are less useful for that reason than emails.
I do agree that non-records can be useful. I appreciate that, generally, my face to face conversations aren’t recorded, and thus need to be secured as you mentioned. But I also lament that lack of records for some conversations as well.
Audio to text transcription is really quite good these days. I didn’t mean to say it was a solved problem… just that the reason it isn’t is not a lack of the basic technological capabilities required.