Is group chat making you sweat?

Group chat as the main method of communication leads to:

• Mental fatigue and exhaustion. Group chat feels like an all-day meeting with no agenda.
• An ASAP culture. Everything must happen now! 
• Fear of missing out or not having a say. If you don't pay attention all the time, you might lose out.
• Thinking a line at a time instead of complete thoughts at a time. People can jump in before you can fully present yourself.
• Implied consensus because "we talked about it in the chat room."
• Knee-jerk responses. You only have a small window to make your point before the writing scrolls away.
• Lack of context.

As a rule of thumb, use group chat in real-time sometimes, asynchronous most of the time.

• Don't expect everyone to be in chat all day.
• If it's important, slow down. The conversation is not suitable for a chat room.
• Announcements aren't chats. Send announcements via email or whatever that provides synchronous communication.
• Give everyone a chance to have a say. Thoughtful feedback = time + an answer, not just an answer.
• Treat group chats like conference calls. Limit it to three people as more can become chaotic.
• Summarise instead of drip information.
• It's OK to be unavailable.

We still lean on chat too much, and I'd like to see us make a major effort to cut back. Understanding the positives and negatives, and how they play off one another, is central to getting the most out of something. Ignoring the pros because the pros are so good, or dismissing the pros because the Cons are so bad, leaves you with a false sense of comfort and a cloudy picture of the reality on the ground.