I don't use any DND or away messaging. I answer when I choose to answer.
I don't really get the issue.
At work we have Slack and I made it clear that I might not be able to answer for hours. Use email and I'll decide if it's important and if so will answer within an hour or leave it for another day. I also insist that everything client/work related is in an email. If it's on Slack only then it doesn't exist.
It may just be a matter of volume. The older people in my life tend to text sparingly. For example, a quick text to see if I’ll be available for a call later or to know what time I’ll be showing up at their house. The younger ones text constantly with a lot of trivial items (news articles, memes, etc).
Personally, I like email for non-time-sensitive communication. If someone sends me a text with a news article or long video, I don’t want to drop everything to read/watch and respond. So there are times I actively ignore it as a way to try and change that expectation.
My personal thoughts on communication are:
- Phone Call == Extreme emergency or something extremely personal. Or preceded by a text to talk out something too complex or confusing to do via text. - Text == Something quick and straight forward and needs a fairly quick response. - Email == More complex information or non-time-sensitive. May take a day or two to respond.