Imagine a world where we aren't constantly tethered to our devices, where our time isn't always up for grabs. What if we just stopped being so available? Let's explore the potential impact on our lives, relationships, and mental health.
Today’s norms of responsiveness are ridiculous
At first, being reachable all the time felt good.
- As more people got mobile devices, responding to messages anytime became the norm among co-workers as well as friends and loved ones
- Now when people feel they haven’t responded sufficiently quickly, they think they owe their correspondent an apology
- The “acceptable” window of response time has gotten much smaller with email and smartphones
- There can be real consequences to responding slowly in a culture that considers idleness, or even just the appearance of it, to be a moral shortcoming
How to avoid passive-aggressiveness
Thank the recipient for their patience instead of offering an apology
- Provide an explanation for the delay
- If a message will take a while to respond to, first reply with a quick note saying when you plan to respond fully
- “Sorry for my delay” can be a way to signal that you care
Just changing the wording of our emails is not sufficient
What I crave is a more humane culture of work and communication
- Technology could be designed to that end
- When people turn on “Focus” mode, others can see in the Messages app that they aren’t receiving notifications
- The law can help too
- A legal “right to disconnect” cuts down on after-hours work emails
- Ellie Harmon, a senior instructor at Portland State University, pointed out that technology isn’t in and of itself stressful-other people’s expectations are
- We may not be able to easily change others’ expectations of us and create a perfect disconnection for ourselves, but it is within our power to give others a degree of that feeling
