Re:Ask HN: Is time perceived faster online than in person?
by BrandoElFollito on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @02:01AM
(#24773581)
In a direct, face to face conversation, you are fully dedicated to the other person. This means the time between interactions has a meaning on its own (thinking about whet the other party said, not agreeing ,...)
In a chat you are expected/allowed to do other things in the meantime.
Re:Ask HN: Is time perceived faster online than in person?
by mycall on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @06:24PM
(#24771006)
With multitasking and sharing your time chopped up being online, you can't always respond to chats or attention grabbing notifications as they would expect in person (visual cues aside). We are more forgiven online and awkward silence here.
If I ask somebody a question in person and they take 5 mins to respond then that's a pretty ling awkward silence. If I message somebody on Slack and they take 5 mins to respond then that's not unreasonable.
You could argue that the "Seen" feature of chat is meant to lower the acceptable wait time online, and indeed it does, but still not by as much. If somebody has "Seen" my message but doesn't reply after a couple mins, I'll start to wonder why, but usually my reasonableness kicks in and I think maybe they just are busy or didn't mean to click the notification or something. I'd still wait far longer for somebody to respond to a "seen" message than I would for somebody to respond to a "heard" question I asked them in person.