>For people you do care about, you can always meet offline, or call.
This is an incredibly myopic worldview especially nowadays. I don't know about you, but online is where I do 99% of my socialization outside of the office. Why? Because phone calls are distracting and rude (when IM is right there and won't interrupt everyone), and meeting up in real life is something that requires a sometimes herculean effort of schedule juggling.
>> Because phone calls are distracting and rude (when IM is right there and won't interrupt everyone)
Why? If the other person is busy, they don't have to pick it up. Or you send them a text to make sure they are free (it's what I do). For close friends, I already have a pretty good idea when they'll be busy or free.
"""This is an incredibly myopic worldview especially nowadays. I don't know about you, but online is where I do 99% of my socialization outside of the office."""
Then I'm sorry to inform you, you are not doing much socialization at all.
If phone calls from you are taken as "distracting and rude" or if you see phone calls from others as "distracting and rude", then a) they don't like you and b) you are not a social person anyway.
And if a real life meeting "requires a sometimes herculean effort of schedule juggling", maybe you have your priorities wrong.
>Then I'm sorry to inform you, you are not doing much socialization at all.
And you know anything about my socialization how? Where did this backwards (and utterly ludicrous) idea that one can only socialize in person or via voice come from?
>if you see phone calls from others as "distracting and rude", then a) they don't like you
Are you trying to be as offensive and acerbic as humanly possible? Your bad attempt at snark aside, I'd expect a commenter to a site named "Hacker News" to have a more hacker-esque mind set. Having the phone ring is much, much more distracting to someone who is occupied on a mostly mental task such as coding than an instant message or even a SMS. My particular group and I tend to shun the phone unless it's either 1) super important, something that would justify the loss of mental state or 2) downtime on a weekend when we know the other person isn't likely to be occupied or even 3) asked ahead of time so the other person can clear whatever they're doing.
It's a no brainer. There is quite literally no reason to call someone when an equivalent electronic form of communication is less distracting and just as effective. Knowing someone is working and choosing to impose yourself over whatever they are doing for the purposes of small talk is very rude.
>And if a real life meeting "requires a sometimes herculean effort of schedule juggling", maybe you have your priorities wrong.
I'm happy you have all the time in the world to organize as you see fit. I am not so lucky.
"""And you know anything about my socialization how?"""
Well, duh, from YOU, when you stated: "online is where I do 99% of my socialization outside of the office."
"""Where did this backwards (and utterly ludicrous) idea that one can only socialize in person or via voice come from?"""
I don't know, never heard of that idea. Mine was: if you're doing "99% of your socializing online" there you're not doing much at all --especially if people you could contact think phone calls from you are "distracting and rude".
"""I'd expect a commenter to a site named "Hacker News" to have a more hacker-esque mind set."""
No, I don't go for sheep mentality. Try ESR's blog for a truly hacker-esque mind set.
"""Having the phone ring is much, much more distracting to someone who is occupied on a mostly mental task such as coding than an instant message or even a SMS."""
I'm a programmer myself and have lots of programming friends, from work, for old workplaces, from uni, you name it. No one has a problem answering their phone --as long as you don't call them every other hour.
There are tons more distractions in a day than a friend calling you (meetings, for one) --and you wouldn't call them at work time, anyway. OTOH, if all their/your time is work time, i.e if 9pm you're at work coding, then, they/you're not really socializing anyway, you're just commenting on other people walls --other people you will almost never see in person or interact with.
"""I'm happy you have all the time in the world to organize as you see fit. I am not so lucky."""
I sure don't, but if a meeting in real life took herculean effort, I'd consider my working schedule a failure, and would try to find ways to amend it.
How does "doing most socializing online" equate to "there you're not doing much at all" in your mind? Again. Very wrongheaded.
>No one has a problem answering their phone --as long as you don't call them every other hour.
It's not that there is a problem answering their phone, it's that it's much more polite to either carry on your conversation via IM if it doesn't require voice (and I have a hard time thinking up things that do), or at least ping them first before you start burning up their phone.
>...you're just commenting on other people walls
Did you forget about the entire IM framework that facebook holds? Also, wall comments are immediately flashed to the other person if they are online. Carrying on public conversations is a common occurence.
This is an incredibly myopic worldview especially nowadays. I don't know about you, but online is where I do 99% of my socialization outside of the office. Why? Because phone calls are distracting and rude (when IM is right there and won't interrupt everyone), and meeting up in real life is something that requires a sometimes herculean effort of schedule juggling.