I run into something that I find somewhat frustrating. When I write text messages to people, they’re often pretty long. At least relative to the length of other people’s text messages. I’ll write something like 3-5 paragraphs at times. Or more.
I’ve had people point this out as being intimidating and a lot to read. That seems odd to me though. If it were an email, it’d be a very normal-ish length, and wouldn’t feel intimidating, I suspect. If it were a blog post, it’d be quite short. If it were a Twitter thread, it’d be very normal and not intimidating. If it were a handwritten letter, it’d be on the shorter side.
So then, why does the context of it being a text message make it particularly intimidating when the same amount of words isn’t intimidating in other contexts? Possibly because it takes longer to type on a cell phone, but that doesn’t explain the phenomena when conversations are happening on Signal or WhatsApp (I kinda consider those all to be “text messages” in my head along with SMS). I also run into it on Slack and Discord.
Gmail displays long messages better than e.g. Signal, even on my laptop. And I often do find the same email feels longer when I read it on my phone than my laptop.
Gmail also makes it easy to track long messages I want to delay responses to. Texts feel much more “respond RIGHT NOW or forget about it forever”
Gmail displays long messages better than e.g. Signal, even on my laptop. And I often do find the same email feels longer when I read it on my phone than my laptop.
Hm. Do you think this is due to readability or norms? I’d say I’m roughly 80% confident it’s norms.
Gmail also makes it easy to track long messages I want to delay responses to. Texts feel much more “respond RIGHT NOW or forget about it forever”
I also suspect that this is due to norms rather than functionality. For example, Gmail (and other mail clients) let you mark things as unread and organize them in folders. However, it seems easy enough to scroll through your text messages (or Signal, or WhatsApp...), see if you were the last person to respond or not, if not whether their last message feels like the end to the conversation.
I think it’s at least partially readability. Signal won’t give a given line more than half my screen, where gmail will go up to 80% (slack and discord are similar). I don’t use the FB messenger app, but the webapp won’t give a line more than half the width of the screen.
However, it seems easy enough to scroll through your text messages (or Signal, or WhatsApp...), see if you were the last person to respond or not, if not whether their last message feels like the end to the conversation.
I think this is way more work than looking at “what’s still in my inbox?”, and rapidly becomes untenable as the number of messages or delay in responding increases.
Hmm, I have never thought that a message from another person is too long. But I think my messages are sometimes too long. I once wrote a message on Discord that was iirc over 8000 characters long. I think that was a bit too much but for a different reason. It interrupted the flow of the conversation just too much and did not enable enough back and forth.
Long text messages
I run into something that I find somewhat frustrating. When I write text messages to people, they’re often pretty long. At least relative to the length of other people’s text messages. I’ll write something like 3-5 paragraphs at times. Or more.
I’ve had people point this out as being intimidating and a lot to read. That seems odd to me though. If it were an email, it’d be a very normal-ish length, and wouldn’t feel intimidating, I suspect. If it were a blog post, it’d be quite short. If it were a Twitter thread, it’d be very normal and not intimidating. If it were a handwritten letter, it’d be on the shorter side.
So then, why does the context of it being a text message make it particularly intimidating when the same amount of words isn’t intimidating in other contexts? Possibly because it takes longer to type on a cell phone, but that doesn’t explain the phenomena when conversations are happening on Signal or WhatsApp (I kinda consider those all to be “text messages” in my head along with SMS). I also run into it on Slack and Discord.
Gmail displays long messages better than e.g. Signal, even on my laptop. And I often do find the same email feels longer when I read it on my phone than my laptop.
Gmail also makes it easy to track long messages I want to delay responses to. Texts feel much more “respond RIGHT NOW or forget about it forever”
Hm. Do you think this is due to readability or norms? I’d say I’m roughly 80% confident it’s norms.
I also suspect that this is due to norms rather than functionality. For example, Gmail (and other mail clients) let you mark things as unread and organize them in folders. However, it seems easy enough to scroll through your text messages (or Signal, or WhatsApp...), see if you were the last person to respond or not, if not whether their last message feels like the end to the conversation.
What do you think?
I think it’s at least partially readability. Signal won’t give a given line more than half my screen, where gmail will go up to 80% (slack and discord are similar). I don’t use the FB messenger app, but the webapp won’t give a line more than half the width of the screen.
I think this is way more work than looking at “what’s still in my inbox?”, and rapidly becomes untenable as the number of messages or delay in responding increases.
Hmm, I have never thought that a message from another person is too long. But I think my messages are sometimes too long. I once wrote a message on Discord that was iirc over 8000 characters long. I think that was a bit too much but for a different reason. It interrupted the flow of the conversation just too much and did not enable enough back and forth.