What Happens When Work Becomes A Nonstop Chat Room

Has Slack made the office more productive? More of a snake pit? More like Tinder?

- Molly Fischer

Laura works in ad sales at a well-known tech company. Her office uses Slack, which is likely either as integral to your workday as email or you have never heard of it before. In which case, some explanation: Slack is a workplace messaging app that lets co-workers easily carry on an assortment of group and individual conversations, some private and some public, all organized in a simple user interface; it’s chattier than sending an email, less of a hassle than scheduling a meeting. It’s also easy to use on your phone — not so different from sending a text — and perhaps because of that ease, or because of the bright Silicon Valley affect it shares with services like Facebook and Instagram (Slack’s headquarters are in San Francisco), it tends to foster a dashed-off, emoji-laced vernacular. It does well with millennial workers.