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How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency

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Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency

#21

Post by ravitation »

MatekCopatek wrote: post #11
dreamfactored wrote: post #6

The killer feature of slack is that alerts are highly configurable and work properly across devices - it lets you eliminate unnecessary and duplicated alerts

Sure, but there are still two major problems IMHO. Firstly, there's no practical and intentional workflow to postpone things (an equivalent of "mark as unread"). Secondly, because a majority of people responds to notifications immediately, it becomes socially unacceptable to not do it in a timely manner.

Like has been stated. This is a feature, not a bug.

If you've read a message, why aren't you responding? It's likely not a problem with Slack that you cannot tell one of your coworkers that you will look at something or do something later.

Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency

#22

Post by ravitation »

pyzon wrote: post #3

I don't disagree with the article's premise that Slack hijacks your brain, but as someone who worked for a far-flung company that didn't have Slack, and instead relied on email/phone/web meetings, I NEVER want to go back to that.

Even less extreme, I worked at an all remote company that primarily used Skype (pre-Slack). I don't want to go back to that.

Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency

#23

Post by sumitgt »

MatekCopatek wrote: post #7

I never really understood the hype around Slack. I keep reading articles like this one, I constantly hear people saying "zomg we transitioned to Slack and are having such an awesome time, it's way better then [insert messaging app]!". I'm probably getting old, but I've been using it for about 3-4 years now (because work) and it seems just like a polished IRC client tied to a proprietary service to me.

> polished IRC client tied to a proprietary service to me

This is precisely the point. Most companies just needed something that worked. It doesn't really matter if it's proprietary, if it gets the work done.

Paying a little money to slack is much more convenient that getting you entire company to setup and use IRC.

Out side the HN bubble, people choose convenience over open and free.

Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency

#24

Post by icebraining »

jgh wrote: post #2

Slack for work mostly sucks. It's OK for communities where urgency is obviously not there -- basically as an alternative IRC. I have worked at a couple companies that used IRC. They beauty of IRC is no offline notifications (unless you're using a cloud service, I guess) -- so it was only used during the workday. I'm not sure if this is the case with other teams, but I've been noticing my team has been using public ch…

I'm fairly indifferent towards Slack, but I don't get your point about the beauty of IRC. If you don't want to receive Slack messages outside the workday, why are you on it at that time? I just close the client.

Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency

#25

Post by jshakes »

ravitation wrote: post #19

When does a conversation stop being about a tool or a platform and become about how it's used? Slack is not perfectly opinionated. It does not enforce a single way of working on everyone that uses it. One of the weakest areas I have found on HN has been discussion around organizations and how they function. New tools, like Slack, open new doors, but they are not silver bullets. Switching to Slack doesn't solve inhere…

OP here. I think the problem is that when tools like Slack are engineered in such a way as to make people dependent on their product, it's unfair to expect users to accept all the responsibility of mitigating against that. Software companies aren't using organizational productivity as a benchmark for their success, just usage statistics. So no, Slack doesn't enforce a single way of working, but it is engineered to consume as much of people's time as possible, for better or worse.

Jason Fried wrote his in his (much more comprehensive) post about group chat pros/cons:

"It’s common in the software industry to blame the users. It’s the user’s fault. They don’t know how to use it. They’re using it wrong. They need to do this or do that. But the reality is that tools encourage specific behaviors. A product is a series of design decisions with a specific outcome in mind. Yes, you can use tools as they weren’t intended, but most people follow the patterns suggested by the design. And so in the end, if people are exhausted and feeling unable to keep up, it’s the tool’s fault, not the user’s fault. If the design leads to stress, it’s a bad design."

(https://m.signalvnoise.com/is-group-chat-making-you-sweat-74...)

Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency

#26

Post by dreamfactored »

MatekCopatek wrote: post #11
dreamfactored wrote: post #6

The killer feature of slack is that alerts are highly configurable and work properly across devices - it lets you eliminate unnecessary and duplicated alerts

Sure, but there are still two major problems IMHO. Firstly, there's no practical and intentional workflow to postpone things (an equivalent of "mark as unread"). Secondly, because a majority of people responds to notifications immediately, it becomes socially unacceptable to not do it in a timely manner.

Do you use slack? You seem to be criticising the thing that slack is really good at.

The postpone workflow is to switch alerts off, can be done on schedule for when you are not at work and manually for meetings etc. And it allows you to fine tune these between channels and people etc. There are a number of statuses that show to your co-workers (on holiday, sleeping, in meeting, dnd etc). Those messages are there unread for you to come back to when you are ready.

Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency

#27

Post by jshakes »

dwb wrote: post #18

I'm very distractible, and I get on fine with Slack. I genuinely feel work is easier with it, you just have to aggressively filter the attention-grabbing. My strategy is: notifications for mentions and ultra-important channels only, mute any channel I don't want to definitely read all of (joining a channel and immediately muting is common for me), disable the unread dot completely for non-primary teams, and unsubscri…

OP here. Iit's telling that so many people are commenting in this thread about how Slack isn't that bad because you can customize it to be less attention-grabbing. The fact remains that Slack is engineered to be attention-grabbing out of the box. Sure you can tweak it to make it less shouty, but Slack is still a product that is sold for money by a company. It's not in their interests to make it align with your existing workflow if they can upend that workflow entirely. No one's making money from you having a meeting or sending a well thought out email, so I think it's worth being cynical when considering paid alternatives.

I think it's also worth remembering that for hacker type folks like us, customizing software is the norm. But default settings are default for a reason, and they will inevitably end up being the most commonly used. When everyone else in your company expects you to use Slack they way do, i.e. for 8 hours a day with instantaneous reply times, then it becomes hard to push against that and eventually it becomes the status quo

Re: How Slack hooks users through artificial urgency

#30

Post by r00fus »

ravitation wrote: post #22
pyzon wrote: post #3

I don't disagree with the article's premise that Slack hijacks your brain, but as someone who worked for a far-flung company that didn't have Slack, and instead relied on email/phone/web meetings, I NEVER want to go back to that.

Even less extreme, I worked at an all remote company that primarily used Skype (pre-Slack). I don't want to go back to that.

Skype had one benefit: it was easier to add folks to your DM. Other than that, Slack is better. It's essentially Skype++ for us. Bots ... well they never really did much.
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