Before the smart-phone arrived — together with widely-available GSM networks — online communication was different. I would deliberately have to sit in-front of my computer, connect to the internet (in the era of dial-up), and launch my favorite instant-messaging app: ICQ, MSN, Miranda, Trillian, Pidgin, or an IRC client. I’d spend some time, limited in the era of dial-up, to chat with my friends (or online strangers), if they happened to be online at the same time. Of course, I also used the phone, the one with the physical wires, but this post is not about it.
And when the internet was moving at the speed of light, from DSL to ADSL to Broadband, and the web was maturing from 1.0 to 2.0 — we got the mobile phone and Facebook Messenger. Suddenly, intentional communication was replaced with instant communication. You’d be expected to reply no matter the time of day or whether you were near a computer or not, because you owned a smartphone, and were connected 24/7.
Slow communication was replaced with instant communication, and even in business environment you’d rely more on tools like Slack rather than email. And while it did bridge the gap for certain teams, for example remote or distributed teams who now could operate as if they were all present in the same room, it also created a sense of urgency for every little thing. Sending a message is easy, replying is not. In order to reply, you need to stop what you are doing, read and analyze the content, and then craft a reply. Getting back to what you were doing before, wastes a lot of energy and time (I wrote about context switch back in 2019 here). And so, naturally, I have disabled all phone notifications. No more sound, no more blinking notification lights.
But the world kept moving, and soon short form content took over the world. I never cared for social networks like Twitter. But after burning out of tech, selling everything I have, and becoming a digital nomad, I opened the world of indie-hacking (jeez, I hate this term), and, of course, all indie-hackers were hanging out on Twitter. And so I started to use Twitter, and LinkedIn, and Instagram, and my brain melted.
Until eventually, I have deleted all my social network accounts, and came back to the source — the email! And little by little I started to build connections with people over emails. I would email interesting people whose blogs I read; and I would get emails from people who read my blog(s). We would exchange ideas, and discuss various topics.
But most of the emails I get from people usually start with a variant of “Apologies for the long delay in my reply”. And, first of all, I think people should apologize if they harmed someone, or were wrong — which is not case if you did not reply to my email “on time” (whatever this means). But, second of all, you should not apologize for not replying to my email “on time” (again, whatever this means).
The reason I use email is that I want to be able to dedicated my full attention (to the extent possible in this stupid, crazy world) to your message, and craft a thorough reply. I avoid Instant Messaging with close people for the same reason; I prefer to meet offline, if possible, or do a video call where I’m focused only on the call. IM is for short stuff like “running late”, “grab the cake”, etc.
And email is the antidote for this crazy world. Email is slow for a reason; it has no “seen” status for messages; there is no online status for the recipient. You send it, and you forget it. Sure, in professional settings, you expect to get a reply, but between two online strangers? No way.
So, please don’t apologize for replying late to email. You don’t have time? Take as long as you need. I have conversation with people where we reply once a month.
You feel like you don’t like me, or don’t want to reply? Then don’t! It’s email. It’s slow. And it’s the antidote to fast-paced slop, and a place to have interesting discussions, because you reply to it deliberately, rather than because of FOMO or notification fatigue.