I found it helps to set boundaries and in one instance make it clear that I do not appreciate being called out of the blue. I feel almost everyone understands that a texting before a call is polite these days. Clarification was only required once for a colleague who tried dialling me into a meeting I wasn’t party to, just to ask me some questions that could have been an IM. They were actually a little younger, and so I think it was more a case of realising your impact on other people (who may be in or trying to achieve flow) if you interrupt them because it seems urgent to you. Like the article notes, the open plan office engendered interruptions too easily because it was convenient rather than urgent.

As a millennial I suppose I fall in between the two camps. When I was younger, social anxiety about taking up people’s valuable time with my silly questions made a phone call seem like a terrible burden to subject someone to, but with age and (remote work) experience, I’ve realised that conversations are indeed much higher bandwidth and often appreciated more than a letter or thread of back-and-forth clarifications. If I _had_ to stereotype by generation (sorry GP) I could say voice and video seem easier than reading and writing for boomers and Gen-Zs, but even that doesn’t sound right. It’s probably just a communication style thing. There’s a reason many of us struggle to read a book when we can watch some TV instead. As humans we communicate with our voice, face, and body. The main benefit of text is asynchronicity. The challenge is how to thread the needle of asynchronicity in an increasingly post-literate world.