In what ways do you communicate online?
Online communication, for me, isn’t a toolbox so much as a building: same address, different rooms, different dynamics, different outcomes.
Email: This is the study. The good reading lamp. The filing cabinet. It is very adult. Everything said here can be printed, forwarded, rediscovered in 2029, and used as evidence. Read it twice before sending. Then read the To/Cc a third time, because nothing says “I didn’t mean to exclude you” like excluding someone.
SMS: This is the sticky note on the bench top. Short, practical, usually about logistics: Here. Running late. Can you grab milk? But it’s also where the little love hearts live—the quick “thinking of you”, the xoxo, little bits of warmth you can leave behind without making a speech.
Facebook: This is the kitchen. The big table. The place people drift through with mugs and opinions and photos from Saturday. News, birthdays, grief, the cousin’s engagement, the neighbour’s dog. You can’t stand in a kitchen without overhearing something. Also: you should assume everything here has been reheated at least once.
Instagram: This is the hallway gallery. The best frames. The flattering light. The room where people hang the version of themselves they can live with. You don’t critique the brushwork. You nod. You move on. You remember it’s curated, not comprehensive.
Snapchat: This is the laundry basket with the lid on. “Nothing to see here,” it says, confidently, while radiating the energy of a secret. It’s designed to disappear, which is always the first clue that someone hopes you’ll forget. Of course, you won’t.
WhatsApp: This is the living room couch. Familiar, warm, slightly chaotic, and somehow always hosting a group chat that behaves like a family Christmas: affectionate, loud, the place where you say the personal things quickly, because everyone’s already there.
X (Twitter): This is talkback radio with a comment section. Everyone’s got a take, nobody’s listening, and the prize goes to whatever provokes a reaction. The public doesn’t respond to your view so much as rank you because of it — clap, boo, pile on, screenshot, repeat.
Teams/Slack: This is the noisy hallway. People calling after each other with half-formed sentences. Decisions made mid-stride. “Yep—do it.” “Can you just—” “Quick question—” The hallway feels temporary, but it’s actually searchable, which means your throwaway “sure” will live forever.
Zoom: This is the dining room turned meeting room. The miracle room. The room that let us keep showing up without leaving the house. This is the place where we can travel nowhere and still arrive looking slightly startled, as though we’ve been summoned.
Docs with comments: This is the workshop out the back. The bench. The tools. The place where the work actually gets done: drafts, tweaks, someone circling a sentence and saying, politely, “I’m not sure this means what you think it means.” It’s collaborative in the way real building is collaborative: a bit noisy, occasionally bruising, often brilliant.
WordPress: This is my playroom. My studio, if I’m feeling dignified. The space where I’m allowed to try things, rearrange the furniture, make a mess, and call it “drafting.” No one’s waiting on an immediate decision. No one’s counting the Cc list. It’s where I remember that words can be for joy, not just for coordination.
Same building, different rooms. Choose the room. And remember: talkback is always live.
The Afterword 
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