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Ask HN: Is time perceived faster online than in person?

19 points by richardjennings ↗ HN
I wonder if a person on average will wait for less time in an online interaction than an in-person interaction before deeming it necessary to correspond prose intended as a helpful direction towards an answer?

7 comments

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LuvSauce
Yes. Online provides very little cues of action, therefore requiring the people to state their actions. When primative man was done with his work, he was content to do nothing, but not in society today where we are cogs in a machine working for society.
sam0x17
If you're thinking about conversations, I think it's definitely the opposite. For example, waiting for a reply to a chat message people definitely have more patience than when having a verbal conversation (anything longer than a few seconds would be an awkward pause).

Depends what you mean by "interaction" though

Thorentis
No I think it's the opposite, or at least, every situation is different. Consider a one-on-one chat (either over an instant messenger, or face to face in person). The period of time after which it becomes an "awkward silence" is much shorter in person.

If I ask somebody a question in person and they take 5 mins to respond then that's a pretty ling awkward silence. If I message somebody on Slack and they take 5 mins to respond then that's not unreasonable.

You could argue that the "Seen" feature of chat is meant to lower the acceptable wait time online, and indeed it does, but still not by as much. If somebody has "Seen" my message but doesn't reply after a couple mins, I'll start to wonder why, but usually my reasonableness kicks in and I think maybe they just are busy or didn't mean to click the notification or something. I'd still wait far longer for somebody to respond to a "seen" message than I would for somebody to respond to a "heard" question I asked them in person.

mycall
With multitasking and sharing your time chopped up being online, you can't always respond to chats or attention grabbing notifications as they would expect in person (visual cues aside). We are more forgiven online and awkward silence here.
BrandoElFollito
In a direct, face to face conversation, you are fully dedicated to the other person. This means the time between interactions has a meaning on its own (thinking about whet the other party said, not agreeing ,...)

In a chat you are expected/allowed to do other things in the meantime.

dsr_
Time is perceived as being faster when the brain is engaged and interested.

In-person, people have a tendency towards politeness and waiting for the other party to finish their statement before making their next interaction. Computers are not accorded that grace.

S-Stanley
If I understood well I would say that id depend on the medium. If I'm asking a question by email I expecte to have an answer in 2/3 days. But if it's a chat (specially a chat box) I expect it to be in a matter of minutes. The same for IRL, if it's letter I dont mind waiting weeks but in a line a few minutes..

I don't think it should be online/offline but more about the situation and the medium