(no subject)

[mrissa]

Isn't the internet great? Instantaneous communication!

You know what? The instantaneous part is optional. You do not actually have to reply to things the moment you read them -- either on websites or in e-mail. And more to the point, I don't have to, either. This is apparently a point I need to make as an lj policy: I do not guarantee that I will read my e-mail or my lj comments within a given time-frame, and if I do, I do not guarantee that I will respond right away.

And if I do not respond right away, it doesn't mean that I love you, hate you, agree with you, disagree with you...etc. etc. until you get the point. It means that I'm taking awhile to see if I have something to say on the subject and, if so, what it is and how I'm going to say it. It may mean that, while I know what I think and even how to phrase it, I feel more like doing other things. I am allowed to feel more like doing other things.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoy a lot of lj interactions, and I enjoy e-mail. But I also enjoy getting enough sleep at night, going for a walk, reading a book or watching a movie without popping upstairs every five minutes, spending time with the other mammals in my life. I'll bet you do, too, and I give you a blanket permission: even in the midst of a big discussion, whether it's heated or not, you may step away from the computer and continue with the rest of your life.

Comments

[aet.livejournal.com]

Ah, but sometimes the lure of the net IS not love, hate, agreement or disagreement but the pure pleasure of instant feedback.

Is it not so that thousands of people are roaming the net just to get someone/anyone to answer back, not matter what (or in what language?) the answer is. As long as it is fast incoming, it feeds the hunger that drove the typer into the lap of net.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, they should consider this fair warning that they should seek elsewhere if they want the response guaranteed.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

That non-instant part is one reason I prefer email to telephones. Even with an answering machine set to "stun" (I only _wish_ I could set it to "kill"...) the telephone is inherently rude. It intrudes. It demands your attention, claiming (usually a lie) that it is more important than whatever you might be doing at this precise instant. Wife and I have long claimed that there is an interconnection between the phone lines and the plumbing, and also one between the phone and the bedsprings...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is why I am not comfortable with calling people on the phone. It demands not only their time but a specific chunk of their time. I'm okay with it with gaaldine because we have a standard early-conversation, "Are you busy?" from the caller built into how we do this phone thing, and we've done it for long enough that we both know that, "Kinda, yeah," is an acceptable answer. The other one will chirp, "Okay, I'll try again some other time" and go on with her life. Without that protocol firmly established, well. Eek. I just don't like calling people. Even once I'm fairly sure they like talking to me, I'm not always clear that they will like talking to me on the phone -- and indeed, some of the people who like talking to me the most don't.

[pieslut.livejournal.com]

Yes! But I thought no one else understood! Phones are intrusive, and it is rude to contact someone and expect them to have the time/inclination to chat without even asking first. Which is why I usually screen all my calls, and then call people back.
But the sound of the phone still bothers me.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but if you call them back, then *you* are interrupting *them*. And if both of you follow that strategy, you'll never talk....

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Preach it sista!

I reserve the right to not answer my phone just because I don't feel like it. This makes some people crazy.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

I wish more people considered answering the phone to be optional.

I keep my cell phone on silent and use it only as a means of last resort.

[careswen.livejournal.com]

Agreed. We'll fly 800 miles to visit our families, just to watch my mom talk on the phone through Christmas dinner, because the woman can't help herself. Drives my nutters.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

*Lots* of people think the phone is intrusive. It even featured prominently in the "workspace invaders" t-shirt (stuff descending like in space invaders, but each icon representing some interruption; the phone is the one I remember...).

If answering the phone is optional, then it becomes useless for the actually urgent situations (or anything else; I don't answer when you call, you don't answer when I call...). So people should only call when it *is* urgent.

[redbird]

People should be prepared to assume that the person they're calling is screening (or briefly unavailable) and start talking to the machine. Most of us can say "Hi, it's Vicki, I'm just calling to chat," "Hi, it's Vicki, I bought extra corn/tuna/chocolate cake, would you like to come over this evening and help me eat it/I'm having a party on the 13th, I hope you can make it," or "It's Vicki, thus-and-such urgent is happening, I need to talk to you, please call me at $number or $mobile_number, even if you get this at 3 a.m."

The people I'd call with any of those messages could handle them accordingly, based on whether they were busy, how soon they got the message if they weren't screening calls, and what mood they were in. (If I wasn't going to go help someone eat extra tuna steaks, I might not bother to call back and say so; if I got the message at 11:00 that night, I almost certainly wouldn't.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The "even if you get this at 3 a.m." tag is very important, to my way of thinking. "Call me if you get a chance" and "call me if you get this in time" are very different from "please call me no matter what time it is."