this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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Technology

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148
I’m not ignoring your message – I’m overwhelmed by the tyranny of being reachable (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 20 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
28 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A friend messaged me the other day. I saw it. I didn’t reply. A week later, I finally responded with the classic: Sorry for the late reply, just got to this.

She called me out. You didn’t just get to this, she said. I saw the double ticks.

Damn. She was right. I’d opened it. I’d registered it. But I’d also shelved it. It needed a proper reply, and at that moment, I wasn’t equipped.

Maybe it got lost between revisiting pictures from 2016 and the reminder I set to cancel my Nibble app 7-day trial on day 6. Maybe I got a call? Perhaps I’d wanted to sink back into that Substack article about reclaiming attention, ironically while still on social media. Maybe I was working one of the four jobs I need to survive under capitalism’s boot heel. Maybe I was doing nothing?

Does free time now equal availability?

I get a ping from the family group chat, which doubles as an IT helpdesk for my mum. My best friend just FaceTimed me about a White Lotus episode, and another left a voice note crying about a possible diagnosis. All this, lodged between videos of cats and genocide.

The boundaries between reception and response have collapsed.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (4 children)

I let everyone know:

  1. Text messages are for asynchronous communication. That’s literally what they’re designed for. I will not communicate over texts synchronously.

  2. I will respond to texts within 2 days usually. Do not expect an immediate response.

  3. If you need me immediately or within short order, call me.

  4. If you call me for non-urgent matters that could have been handled over text, I might not pick up the phone right away. The boy who cried wolf, and all that.

  5. I do not always have my phone on me 24/7. Sometimes I am untethered. I return calls far more quickly than I respond to texts, because I assume a call is more important than a text. It had better be.

  6. If you call and I don’t pick up, leave a voicemail. If you don’t leave a voicemail, I assume it wasn’t important.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 18 hours ago

If you call and I don’t pick up, leave a voicemail. If you don’t leave a voicemail, I assume it wasn’t important

this a thousand times. IDK when people decided to not use the voicemail anymore.

But to be honest I make it more radical and not even return all calls. because. priority 1 - call, not answered but with a voicemail

priority 2 - unanswered call but a message sent afterwards.

priority 3 - message only.

an unanswered call on my side and no further information is for me simply to forget about it.

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