Technology

In general, I disable the ability of getting a 'read receipt' if at all possible. In the case of some rare platforms that don't allow this; I also warn people that "Seeing a 'read receipt' indicator does not mean I was available to reply.

In general; people who hang on to this little indicator are also committing a larger social faux pas, and you should { [(yellow/red) flag] / address / handle } it accordingly based on your relationship to that person, your goals and the situation.

Whether that means 'calling them out' or kindly explaining what it actually means or explaining your approach to communications; the behavior of expecting something to happen on the receipt of a read receipt needs to be discouraged in my personal opinion.

I recently disabled any and all notifications on my phone except calls, SMS, and emergency alerts. No more social media bullshit telling me I got a new like, no more useless groupchats blowing up my phone, no more ad emails with deceptively important sounding subjects. Unless I'm checking manually of course - which I do once or twice a day. Other than that it's pure bliss all day every day. If you can I urge you to try it too.

You didn’t just get to this, she said. I saw the double ticks. Damn. She was right.

Not to take away from the general message but that's exactly why I never enable read receipts.

The key lesson to learn from this:

Be kind and understanding when you feel ignored, it's difficult but it's important to have the self confidence to truly accept that it's not you, they're probably just busy with a million life things.

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.

If the technical boundary collapsed, put a human-made boundary in its place. You have the right to have some peace of mind and quiet; make yourself unavailable for at least a good chunk of the day, and make sure your folks know you're unavailable. And why.

That's how I remain sane.

I pay for cell service so I can reach you, not so you can reach me.

This is so relatable.... The one good thing about pre-internet is that you can really just be away and don't need to respond to anyone.

My partner is my emergency contact point. If you don't have their number, it means that there's no case in which your emergency is my problem. Everything else is on an "I'll get to it if and when I get to it" basis.

On an unrelated note, I don't have a large circle of friends. :P

In addition to the great tips here, I say, turn off as many notifications as possible. The only thing I get immediately are calls, SMS, and Slack+work email during office hours. Like many others said, if it's important, people will call me. Did I miss the message my brother sent the family group chat about his wife being pregnant? Yes, for two days, until he called me. I still found out months before the due date, and my family had a laugh about it. I feel like a fear of missing out is also a big part of these issues, and I think we should try to tell ourselves more that it's okay, important even, to not keep up with everything all the time.

When you don't have a smartphone this is not much of an issue.

It would be helpful if my phone had a built in snooze function. Sometimes I get a text and I want to snooze it for an hour. Just dismiss the notification and remind me later.

mostly I avoid a lot of the big drains (social media, other than lemmy) and tell people I'll get back to them within 24 hours.

Sigh Guardian doesn't let me sign up for their newsletter on a mailbox.org account, shame, was a nice article.

Zucc hates this one simple trick: switch to Signal and quit WhatsApp. I ain't done so, but if I did, I sure would have way less messages. Not by a lot, given I barely maintain regular chats in WhatsApp. But the chances would be slimmer, given barely anyone's on Signal

It’s still your fault for lying in the first place.