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Comment by blown_gasket | Hacker News Reader

I hold the opposite opinion to most of this.

Text messaging, yes is asynchronous - but you don't know what the settings of the persons device are. They could have forgotten or not have quite hours set and now it is very much a synchronous notification even if it's not synchronous communication.

Sending delayed - again things happen. I would rather send a delayed message when I am in full control of the situation rather than possibly not the next morning due to any chain of events from weather, traffic, family, etc.

I feel like this comes from my philosophy of even if individuals are correct, it doesn't mean they are kind. We live in a community with individuals and we should compromise and balance things where needed.

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I fully agree with this.

Some people, including myself unfortunately, are uncomfortable with unread messages. The biggest problem is, you’ll read the message, but not respond right away to avoid creating the impression “keep messaging me at this hour”. Then, when the appropriate time to answer comes, whatever your definition of that is, you’ll forget to actually answer.

I don’t have this problem with email, but messaging platforms create this with read receipts, online/offline status, etc.

but you don't know what the settings of the persons device are. They could have forgotten or not have quite hours set

FWIW, this is the prevailing opinion of almost everyone I know. The only question is what is the appropriate window when you should text. 8-22? 10-22?

Yeah but that assumes you know better than your recipient whether they should like to know that you’ve texted them. That’s a bad habit to get into.

Let people manage the settings on their own devices - whether they’ve forgotten to set their quiet hours is not your concern. Trust other people to take care of their own responsibilities. If they mess up, they deal with the consequences - it’s not your problem. If they feel the need to answer your text immediately when for you it wasn’t necessary, let them choose for themselves. Don’t presume to take that choice away from them.

It is my concern because relationships are built on trust. One can assume that everyone has a smartphone today and they know how to manage the settings on their devices. This is not the case. Technology agnostic - settings are either there or not. It is up to me as the sender and the one that would like to maintain respect, to be respectful with my communication. Which is to not begin or continue communication when it is not of the appropriate time.

Kindness starts by not immediately assuming the motivations of others to be malicious, and to understand why someone else would perform their actions. Here, it's very clear from how all paths are laid out that sending messages to you early even if you won't act on them is only ever a net-benefit if you remove your ego from the equation. Soothing fragile minds and compromise aren't the same thing.

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