But I do want them if someone's asking for help I might be able to give, or frankly even if it's just something chatty/'bants' (that could change if there was more of it of course) - 'status updates' (shared as messages) though really wind me up. OK, have a nice lunch. OK, won't message you for a bit then - but I wasn't going to and this isn't a phone call or meeting so I wouldn't expect an immediate response anyway.
If you're worried someone's going to try to reach you while you're out for half an hour and be upset that you don't reply sooner, just use the (Slack) built-in feature for that?
I agree about news though - call me 'uninformed' if you want, but I think anyone who tries it quickly learns how little of it matters. (And I was a paying Times (London) subscriber before that, not like I was reading gossip mags, tabloids, and Sky News shock-horror clickbait.) Major stuff makes it to HN anyway.