It is one of the few powers individuals have in an actual conversation. Leaving the room is a signal that needs to be respected. If someone is not in the room anymore, you cant talk to them.

If I would be changing my messaging behavior based on whether or not someone is online (which is sort of necessary to avoid confusion) - I would rather optimize that behavior change with two different (UI) systems than trying to use one chat box and one log for it all. Honestly, it seems like product overreach for it to accommodate any async communication.Īsync communication is a very important form of communication and should be managed appropriately and not shoe-horned into live chat UI's. Messenger was developed for people to talk at the same time. The issue is compounded because the person who sent the message may not be available when i see the message. The point is to isolate sync communication from async to preserve the simulation of live conversation as an option online. messenger services tend to be linked to email accounts anyway - so im sure low friction solutions could be developed. i would drop messenger services before i drop email. Maybe i am old, but the messenger service is the 'one more username' to remember. >one more username and protocol to remember 'Hello, I'm in the Adirondacks this weekend, I won't be back in contact until Monday.' In this way you can politely tell friends why you're not responding and when they can try again. However, I do like the idea of the away message as a polite OOO message. Well, if you're not responding, why not just set yourself as offline? The away message only makes sense if you want to be online and simultaneously tell people you aren't responding. All someone needs to do is set themselves as 'offline' and they can still get messages without having to respond. Facebook and WhatsApp and other messengers already give the ability to send a message when someone is offline, as well as letting you have a live interaction when online. I don't think we want to bring back that experience.

This completed the functionality we all needed: just make sure my message gets to the person eventually. You tell the bot who you want to talk to and your message, and when they came back online the bot would send them your message. I was one of a handful of people who wrote AIM bots for things like store-and-forward messaging.

If you were offline, there was no away message, and no way to send you a message at all. Away messages were really useful, because without them someone would have to literally sit at their chat window when you were online and wait for you to respond. Remember that back in the day your computer was not online 24/7/365. Messaging stays asynchronous and that's how it's designed. That allows me to enjoy and focus on them better. I do not answer non urgent stuff when I'm actually with other people in real life. If anything urgent happens they will call. If you are spending time with someone or watching a movie, just don't check out your phone. If I propose something to a friend who usually answers the last minute and something else come up, I consider I can cancel with this last minute friend so I don't let their rules eat me neither.ĭon't let the phone or the computer control you. If they miss something, their loss at the end, but usually I think they see the message quite fast so that does not happen. Some friends take days to answer, I adapt. I'm quite responsive myself usually but I fully expect most of my friends to answer in a few hours or even the next day, and if they answer fast, that's neat but not expected.

I know few people who actually expect others to be able to answer fast any time. If you feel pressure from message (notifications) to answer, that's probably something you can learn to manage and let go. It's probably fine to take hours or even wait the next day to answer a text. Just answer however you feel like doing this and people will have no choice to catch up anyway. Never told them but I have not had issues so far.

I definitely know for most of my friends how they are responsive in what situation and I'm fine with their different rules. It seems like you should be able to make the call on what people should expect wrt your responsiveness.

Aim away messages