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Endless WhatsApp messages and the Jevons paradox
It is so much more efficient to reply to a digital message than to a handwritten letter, so why are we drowning in messages?
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Two US doctors persuaded their hospital to replace their pagers with WhatsApp, and they were soon swamped with messages.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Tim Harford
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A few years ago, two San Francisco doctors, Dr Mary Mercer and Dr Christopher Peabody, persuaded the busy hospital where they worked to conduct an experiment. They replaced their clunky and inflexible old pagers with a cheaper, more flexible and more powerful system. It’s called WhatsApp.
The pilot scheme with the messaging tool was not a success. The chief reason? Messaging became too easy. To interrupt a busy consultant by paging them to demand a return phone call was a serious step, taken with care. But with WhatsApp, why not snap a photograph or even a video message and zip it over just to get a spot of advice? Doctors were soon swamped.
