I would 100% miss messages that way, so it's not an option. But honestly, the anxiety isn't about the notifications (although those are annoying). It's about how if someone says "hi" without any info, then I say "hi" back and now I have to wait for a response before I even know if I can help or not. The anxiety is about time management, not notification toasts.
You don't have to sit and watch the screen for a response. Reply with 'hi' and go back to whatever you were doing and ignore it until you're ready to answer it.
Maybe you are in an environment where everyone needs a fast reply from you and your undivided attention, in which case, I don't think it'd be unreasonable to link them nohello.net as your first reply.
I didn't say anything about watching the screen; I mentioned time management as the issue. Yes, I can go back to what I was doing, only to be interrupted by another notification when you finally respond telling me what you need. But (a) that interrupts my workflow twice instead of just once, which is all that's needed, and (b) regardless of whether I'm watching the chat or returning back to work, it still takes longer to start helping you if I have to wait for you to tell me what you need help with.
I'm fine with a hello-only message if you're just chatting to talk, but at work, 90% of chat messages are for collaboration; I can't collaborate with you if you still haven't told me what you need collaboration on.
nohello.net seems aggressive to just respond with.
I would just ignore the hi, until it becomes an issue, which causes a problem. At that point, I would follow up with them saying, “hey, in the future, could you include your request with the initial <<hi>> message so I can get to it faster?”
