I find that when socializing, people start the conversation off at one branch, and then keep opening up new tangents without ever finishing a branch. Personally I almost always have a moderately strong preference to finish branches. I don’t mind tangents, but I do prefer to actually finish the original branch at some point in the somewhat near future. Or at least to explicitly close it. Perhaps this is why I often prefer to talk/socialzie online than in person.
However, I realize that most people have the opposite preference—conversation where you just keep opening up tangents.
Anyway, I think that having a norm is important. Without a norm, I get the sense that interrupting and saying, “Hey, we just went on a tangent. I’d like to get back to what we were originally talking about.” would be uncomfortable. In many cases, it violates a social norm. In cases where the social norm is more towards, finishing branches, it could still be uncomfortable for whatever reason.
For me, when a tangent conversations starts to die out, I literally say “So… what do you think about [previous topic]?”. The other person will usually laugh, probably because they didn’t even realize that they went off on a tangent.
The main value we’ve gotten from the backthumb norm isn’t to get back to the previous topic after a tangent dies out. It’s to kill useless/unwanted tangents before we waste time on them.
I love the backthumb idea/norm.
I find that when socializing, people start the conversation off at one branch, and then keep opening up new tangents without ever finishing a branch. Personally I almost always have a moderately strong preference to finish branches. I don’t mind tangents, but I do prefer to actually finish the original branch at some point in the somewhat near future. Or at least to explicitly close it. Perhaps this is why I often prefer to talk/socialzie online than in person.
However, I realize that most people have the opposite preference—conversation where you just keep opening up tangents.
Anyway, I think that having a norm is important. Without a norm, I get the sense that interrupting and saying, “Hey, we just went on a tangent. I’d like to get back to what we were originally talking about.” would be uncomfortable. In many cases, it violates a social norm. In cases where the social norm is more towards, finishing branches, it could still be uncomfortable for whatever reason.
For me, when a tangent conversations starts to die out, I literally say “So… what do you think about [previous topic]?”. The other person will usually laugh, probably because they didn’t even realize that they went off on a tangent.
The main value we’ve gotten from the backthumb norm isn’t to get back to the previous topic after a tangent dies out. It’s to kill useless/unwanted tangents before we waste time on them.