Do messaging platforms cause you stress/anxiety?
We're tying to validate a product that will take the anxiety out of online messaging, and help you to create a more intentional relationship with your messaging technology.
What we would love to know from our fellow Indie Hackers is whether you have ever experienced anxiety or stress around online messaging. We would love to know what about the particular platform causes these feelings 😤
On top of that, we'd love to know if you ever feel like you are not in control of when you use your messaging apps, like they are drawing you in on their time, not yours! If you've ever felt like you have a less than intentional relationship with a messaging platform, it would be great to hear the how and why! We know we have!
Thanks in advance to any respondents, we really appreciate anyone who takes the time out to help us validate our idea ♥️♥️♥️
All the time.
Maybe I'm old. But, for me, synchronous, real-time messaging platforms are terrible for communications other than casual chats.
Conversations are constantly overflowing with new messages and catching up takes a lot of time and effort. There are crude tools like an indicator of where new messages start, but with long conversations I frequently lose track of what I've read and what I haven't. So I'm never sure I checked all the latest messages or overlooked something important.
There's also a lot of noise and the platforms don't provide effective tools for isolating the content I want.
I vastly prefer asynchronous platforms like email or discussion boards.
100% agreed! They can work together tho.
Yes, some redundancy and choice can go a long way.
Thanks for the reply, it sounds like you are feeling a lot of the pain points we are feeling too!
I don't think it's an age thing, I just think people don't realise that there is a better, less stressful method of communicating other than pure synchronous methods. We've been told that more connectivity is better, when really that is not the case.
Thanks again for the in depth feedback, your points have given us a lot to think about! ♥️
You're welcome. I definitely feel better with synchronous methods such as email, I always practiced inbox zero.
I'm not "stressed" by messaging apps - i just turn off the notifications for most of them and cycle through them during breaks. Creating a workflow outside the app and training people to respect that helps.
However, I do get flustered when I can't find something and it usually happens when older (60+) people message me. (I cannot "train" them because they are often relatives or family members and a lot of this happens in my personal life).
I will get contacted by text, email, whatsapp and there is no system for what gets sent through what channel. So if I was told to, say, "remember to do the following 15 things by next week" in email, then the followup to that is in text, and then some attachment in whatsapp - I either have to pull those messages to a master to do list or somehow pin them to the top of my respective inboxes until that thing is done.
It's really just an issue I have with maybe 2 of the 50 or so people I interact with on a weekly basis. I haven't looked into the issue because it hasn't grown beyond that.
Thanks for such in depth feedback, it was really interesting to read. It sounds like you are already faulty disciplined with your communication, and by the sounds of it you do review your processes when you think they become an issue, which is great!
Hi Alex,
I think https://twist.com already validated your idea and our own product https://www.uclusion.com goes even further that direction. Perhaps just tell us your idea and we can give better feedback. Believe me no one is going to steal the idea! Its a tremendous amount of work to produce something competitive in this field so its not something less than true believers are going to take on.
Thanks for the response! I checked out Uclusion and it looks really interesting, love the communication in documentation type vibe!
It's not that we don't want to give the idea away, it's that we don't know 100% what the idea is yet, hence why we were reaching out to people to get an idea of the problem.
The problem is that communications tools (other than Uclusion) are inadequate and so people resort to synchronous meetings which are even more stressful than the messaging platforms.