Maybe you hit "Send" a minute ago. Maybe it was five. Maybe it was an hour or a day or a week. Makes no difference, the question remains the same: why haven't they responded? Don't they know that you have put your entire life on hold pending their reply? You could have moved on to other important things, like writing that proposal or making dinner or letting your girlfriend know that you will be wearing the blue dress this weekend. But no, there you are, tapping your fingers. The world might not have stopped spinning, but what happens next is your particular corner of the planet is on hold, pending your phone pinging.
That wait to complete a communication loop is an unfortunate corollary of having 24-hour access to virtually everyone all the time. After all, access is one thing; availability is another. Ever since phones were invented we have had the ability to at least try and contact someone whenever we wanted. However, there was no assurance that they would be in a position to be on the receiving end when we made the call. The remedy to that missed connection was simple: you hung up and tried again.
The invention of the answering machine changed that balance. No longer was the burden on the caller. Rather, they could leave a message, shifting the responsibility to continue the interaction from the caller to the callee. It was then incumbent on the second party to ring back the first to complete the exchange. But while it shifted the obligation from one side to the other, it also shifted control. Rather than responding in the moment, you could consider the request, formulate a response, or even delay calling back until circumstances or further information helped to dictate the reply.
The advent of different methods of communication didn't change that dynamic, it only gave it more avenues to play out. Additionally, this asynchronous interaction fostered an evolving set of metrics, determined by both modality and use case. Or as Diana Ross would have put it more simply, it's all about how you reach out and whom you are trying to touch.
Phone messages usually have the longest window. Whether it's a business-related call or a friend seeking to finalize arrangements for an upcoming get together, you have a solid day or three to respond without looking like you're hiding. And that's if anyone even leaves a message. Just as likely they will let it ring a few times, then hang up before it goes to voicemail and switch over to an alternate pathway. The one exception is mom: she will leave a message, and she will expect a call back before the sun next sets.
Next up in the hierarchy (or down, depending on your point of view) is email. This has evolved to be for more formal back and forths, be it swapping recipes, detailing a weekend away or a proposal for a kitchen remodeling. In business the expectation of a response is 24 hours; with family and friends you probably have twice that. Any longer and things will likely escalate to the next avenue, with a terse "check your email.”
That next avenue (actually more of an expressway) has become the de facto default for many: the text in its various iterations, be it SMS, iMessage, Whatspp or other variant. Perhaps symptomatic of our society's wide craving for instant gratification, this is where we expect the fastest response time, with the relationship between the parties suggesting the expected speed of reply. If it's business related you have a day. If it's family you have the afternoon. If it's friends, you have 10 minutes. And with your best BFF's, the "Chinese Food Standard” applies: ready (or in this case respond) as soon as the phone is hung up.
As with many things, it's all about context. Were Einstein to tailor his famous explanation to the situation at hand, it might go like this: when the water is squirting out of the faucet and you have to wait for a call back from the plumber, every minute seems like an hour. But when your sister iMessages you demanding to know how come mom gave you her pearl earrings, every hour can seem like a minute. That's texting relativity.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford tries not to look at his phone every time it buzzes. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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