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Both that and the read status destroyed the charm of chat to me. Before I could be fast or take 2 days to answer but it would mean that I would take my time to do a proper answer. Now it means I'll ignore messages for a bigger period because I don't want the other person to see that I read them, and then I'll right much faster because I don't want to person to see 6 interrupted "... is typing".

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This is especially difficult when receiving messages you can't immediately deal with. Yes I'm online, and yes I saw your message, but now is not a good moment. No I don't hate you, I'm just not currently available. I hate having to tiptoe around the notification to avoid marking it as read.

I usually just respond with "Hmmm, let me dig into that". That gives me time to do my research and get back to them. It also shows them that I'm actually looking into it, rather than that I forgot about the message.

When I have an issue that's blocking me, if I don't get a response from someone within 10 minutes I'll start reaching out to other people. If I know the first person is already looking into the issue I won't waste other peoples' time.

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