"i'll tell you in person" is a promise

A huge part of the problem is that digital spaces generally have no equivalent of a disapproving glare. You’re stuck choosing between staying silent and entering the fray, with few options in between.

Something I’ve been thinking about is how pre-programmed an action can feel. How long does the sequence take and is it consistently the same one?

When is the last time you had a great conversation? A conversation that wasn’t just two intersecting monologues, which is what passes for conversation a lot in this culture? ​ Although I couldn’t articulate why exactly, intuitively I agreed: I didn’t want to talk about myself either. That was boring. ​ When you think about it, this makes total sense. Whenever you’re “catching up” with someone, you’re often just dumping the details of your life onto another person. It’s as though the notebook of your life fell out of sync with the notebooks of others, and to compensate you hurriedly transcribe the notes from one notebook to the other. Then, the other person reciprocates. As John O’Donohue said, it really feels like two intersecting monologues. ​ Instead, it’s about intentionally searching for launch points – conversational ramps we can use to reach a shared reality far more powerful and enduring than the one we physically occupy. It’s those shared experiences that make great conversation.

Being silent in conversation, to let your friend fill the space and share more. ​ But it’s meta-considerate to not smile until they’ve said something,

there is nothing more joyous than seeing a conversation bloom and meander and twist and blossom in a safe and intimate group chat among friends. it feels to me like a unique type of mediated communication that i struggle to find an in-person analog to. that wild, freeform energy of people you love all sharing and expressing and listening and hearing all at the same time is so exciting!! it feels like this explosion of simultaneous and related thoughts that all still coalesce and move together maybe it's similar to a group of people all talking together in-person! but so many in-person practices and etiquettes don't really translate to the group chat, so it feels more sudden and energetic in a way like in the group chat, it feels like there's a talking over each other but in a way that is responsive and doesn't feel rude! and in the group chat, you don't navigate that anxiety of "do i speak now, do i not, is what i'm gonna say gonna be ignored" as much, in my opinion i think it's partially because in speech, there is a limit where truly only one person can be talking at a time. in the group chat, through text, everyone can be constantly talking and listening all at the same time and there is a brilliant energy to that!! anyway those are my unstructured thoughts about the group chat. shoutout to the group chat!! hopefully i get to be in one one day

you generally felt a sense of presence with your contacts. You at least knew what to expect, generally, when you messaged somebody. ​ The expectation is the conversation never really ends, but in fact, it never really starts, either.

it’s not necessarily ‘discord’ - just think light and fast group chat. you all would love to be at the same bar debating and thinking aloud...you just can’t so replicate that level of casualness and velocity in a chat. tweets ain’t it— ryan dawidjan (@ryandawidjan) December 7, 2018

so many intense and lively twitter debates should just be held in an ephemeral read-only discord channela lot of real-time nuance, dialogue, and clarification are lost in these monster threads— ryan dawidjan (@ryandawidjan) December 7, 2018

The reason I've found conversation more valuable than reading recently (inspired by my chats with @kevinakwok, to name one) is that reading is a uni-directional and often brittle bundle of information flow. Conversation adapts in real-time.— Eugene Wei (@eugenewei) April 17, 2018

That’s part of what makes Branch different from the question-and-answer site Quora, which it’s often compared to. On Quora, users vote on the best answer, which shoots to the top of the page. On Branch, answers to a prompt are listed chronologically. "They’re Q and A. We’re conversation," Miller said. "We’re not interested in the right answer. We’re interested in the conversation." clients might be interested in using the site to broadcast a conversation between a few top execs, sort of like a semi-public email system that employees could read straight from the source without the danger of it turning into a reply-all party.

“was emailing with a friend about screenshots of conversation and how they change what we feel comfortable saying and to whom. the next time you're thinking of saying something, just convey that you've already said it.”

“I'd wager that in the right context, 20-40% of our daily digital conversations could be surfaced publicly and be tremendously valuable”

i dont think twitter lacks "complex discussions" because of its UX design, but because it's a deeply gamified platform that functions on metrics. only certain discussions are possible when everyone is keeping score https://t.co/MFFrw8FNHx— nathanjurgenson (@nathanjurgenson) February 18, 2019