> Email is not a chat client. Use words to communicate to people, and if you don't think a "reaction" merits words, then don't send one.
shakes fist at clouds
Seriously, though, this argument seems kind of silly. Do you not usually use words to chat? It’s fine that you don’t like this in your email but your reasoning is specious. “Chat is for emojis. Email is for words.”
Whether I like it or not, it seems that the modern chat client (e.g. Discord or Slack, not IRC) has developed the expectance that you "react" to chat messages as they happen - because there's a mental model that you're literally "chatting" with someone, and not showing you're listening is a faux pas, so the minimum effort response is a "react", especially thumbs-up just to mean "I saw this message and have no further comment on it"
You can of course chat in email, but it's unusual, there's usually a higher bar to responding; it would be madness if every email had everyone else in the chain send another email saying "I've read this", so that's not what people do. I only see "I've read this" emails if the penultimate email concluded the topic and that was all that's left to say. Hence why it's unwelcome to bring the habits of chat clients to email.
I don't think it is specious. Email == electronic mail, if someone sent you a letter you'd not send a reaction back, you'd sent a reply letter. But companies have been trying for years to make email more like a chat app. Threads come to mind. I I prefer folders over tags too.
Sorry, no. You’re trying to carve out some special use case for email as if it’s primary use is formal communication. Email is used for everything from formal business communication to friendly chats to fwd:fwd:fwd: Grandma’s chain letters.
On the other side, text messages are essentially just small emails and your argument against “reactions” applies equally.
We'll have to agree to disagree. For me, and the way I use these things, emails are formal, text/chat is informal. I've never and will never use email like a chat.
If someone was attempting to use email as such with me, they'd likely be getting no reaction at all.