Rules of Engagement for Digital Communication
Does anyone have experience setting ground rules with family & friends for digital communication and text messaging?
This is a scenario that happens all day, every day, and I'm really struggling to deal with it:
I'm eating lunch and reading an article right now. I get a message over Steam from a friend wanting to just chat. I want to be a supportive friend, so I'm reading and responding. But I'm trying to get back to this article so I can glean what I want from it between messages. Then I get a text message from my mother. She wants to know what we had for lunch, and talk about the weather. Every time I answer one, the other plays a chime. I stop reading my article and focus on responding and eating my lunch. Every time my phone goes off, I have to put my utensils down and answer the text message. Before I know it, I've been balancing both conversations for 15 minutes and I am physically feeling angry.
I've been toying with the idea of telling everyone I don't reply to text messages anymore unless they specifically solicit a response and if they need me for anything else, or it's urgent, to just call me. I don't want to see cold, but this is especially a problem during the week, when I should be working, and I miss deadlines because my mother flips out if I ignore a text message.
What are your thoughts? How do you deal with situations like this?
@Patastrophic Most of the time, I simply don't respond to text messages immediately. Sometimes I'm not even aware I have a text, like if I were to get one right now my phone isn't by me and I wouldn't hear it. I do try to respond reasonably promptly, but I don't view text messaging as something to respond to in real time, besides a few exceptions.
@Patastrophic
All messaging is silent on my phone; the ringer is on only for calls. If it doesn't merit a phone call in the middle of the day, it doesn't need an immediate response :) I reply later on with a frequency that is determined by the kind of connection I want with the person e.g. some people would get a response within 24 hours ideally, others within the week. For those that can't or won't understand why, I wouldn't mess up my day! Of course, this is reciprocal. I don't expect immediate responses from anyone either.