Life In 19x19

One dot is fine, I sometimes use one dot to check if my connection is up. But three dots? That says impatience to me.

If my opponent takes a long time I start to read. Mostly because I'm afraid I missed something crucial. Only when I'm confident that I haven't missed something AND I have waited an additional 20 seconds I'll type "are you still there?" The most likely thing is that you've misread and your opponent is trying to punish you, the second most likely thin is that one of you timed out. If your opponent really types "..." it shows he is impatient and you will win easily

I see "play too fast" not as the problem, but a symptom of an underlying problem: lack of discipline to think about moves. People have mentioned many methods to slow down play (and I've used a couple myself). For me, its not about whether I play a move in 2 seconds or 10 minutes. But if I don't think about what I'm doing, then I'm dooming myself and not playing to my full potential (which is ultimately what I want to do).

As another method to think more about moves: I try to *heavily* prioritize my ability to tenuki. It forces me to 1) find a valuable place I want to play elsewhere, 2) forces me to evaluate if the local position is safe for me to place elsewhere, and 3) avoid slow moves at all costs. This has a nice side effect of improving my reading too. Of course, sometimes I end up too thin, but there is a learning opportunity there too