You’ve heard “communication moves to the lowest fidelity medium that will do the job” Corollary: “communication moves to the least synchronized medium that will do the job” Synchronization = temporal fidelity. I’m gonna start calling phone/video/irl “TeFi” systems.
-
Show this thread
-
TeFi scale (0-10) 0 - 4: Various asymmetric and/or more or less public social media 5 - 6: Private messengers, push notifications off 7: Private messenger or SMS, push notifications on 8: Voice 9: Video 10: IRL 11: IRL, no connectivity 12: IRL, no distractions at all (books, tv)
1 reply 2 retweets 15 likesShow this thread -
Above 10/10 on my scale, you’re in hypersynchronized state. Parallel threads that might take your mind to another time/place are cut off. You’re forced into single-threaded present. Synchronization is not just about temporal alignment. It’s about attention monopolization.
1 reply 2 retweets 9 likesShow this thread -
Since most of us are not level 42 monks who can focus 110% on the herenow unaided, comms technology tends to have affordances based on the one way we CAN all get there: alarm style UXs. A phone ring (and now a push notification ding) is an alarm to trigger stress response.
1 reply 1 retweet 12 likesShow this thread -
Interrupt/alarm based comms tech handshake protocols is fundamentally limited by the stressfulness of the initiating event. Which is why we all hate them and try to wean ourselves off them except for actual mild to severe emergencies where a stress response is appropriate.
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likesShow this thread -
Only family gets to live in push notification+ zone for most of us, partly because family is a sort of persistent, continuous partial mild ongoing emergency called “life itself”. You need that shared situation awareness.
2 replies 3 retweets 13 likesShow this thread -
This line of thought suggests to me that the major divide is not between online and offline. It is between stream escalation vs stream interruption. Here a stream can be understood as a shared situation awareness social information flow with a consensus temporal-fidelity level.
2 replies 0 retweets 12 likesShow this thread -
The background stress level of a stream is a function of the mean time between state updates. Though I tweet a lot, sometimes ~100 a day, I can be off for days or weeks without feeling any FOMO at all.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likesShow this thread -
Addendum: I missed email on my TeFi scale! Where it’s coupled to scheduling it’s an 8 or so. Otherwise it’s a 5-6.
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likesShow this thread -
Addendum 2: Cat is now meowing at me since it’s feeding time. That’s a push notification I can’t turn off

1 reply 3 retweets 13 likesShow this thread
Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao
Attaching a related newer thread here.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1157697615913312256?s=21 …
Venkatesh Rao added,
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.