Reply speed is a tell-tale of approval, for some. So much so, that a delayed response to a text or call may be cause for serious anxiety, or worse, unfitting conclusions.
Irked and offended, they may wonder, ‘Are they ignoring me on purpose? Or are just taking me for granted! A person can draw suppositions.
The rise of rapid-fire communication technology has bred the expectation of people being always on and constantly available, writes BBC’s Bryan Lufkin.
Simply, there are more ways to get in touch with people than ever, and the pressure to respond has become increasingly normalised, since those platforms of communication are tucked in our pockets, wherever we go. We seemingly always can reply, so we ‘should’.
While some people mind much less about how quickly a friend responds, many people ride an emotional roller coaster when a message isn’t immediately answered, whether a direct text or a social-media DM. It’s driven by the effect of 24/7 ‘digital availability’, a socially ingrained expectation that a recipient is constantly around and should immediately shoot back a reply, he marks.
Why do some people get so upset, especially in an age where many people are taking digital detoxes for mental-health breaks, and others are busy juggling life tasks?
Allen Kayijuka, a sales representative, says it’s hard not to overthink when someone takes time to respond or ignores your messages altogether.
"We are in a digital age, and most of us are ‘glued’ to our phones. I have to think otherwise when I call and you don’t pick, or text you and you take ages to respond,” she expresses.
"Most people can take hours or days to reply. They choose to text back at their own leisure, and that’s okay. We all have different choices for how we choose to make use of our time,” says Winslet Umuhoza, a college student.
She adds: "The people who get offended by this are mostly self-centred and want for others to act the way they wish for them to. It can be disturbing when a person delays to respond to you, but getting offended by that is extreme, and it says a lot about who you are as a person.”
My friends keep on giving me a late reply when texting. How can I deal with this? This was a question posted by a Quora user, and Erin McDaniel, said this in response;
"There’s nothing to deal with. What your friends do is their business, not yours. It is not their responsibility to live up to standards you arbitrarily set for them. They are not obligated to meet a deadline you have in your mind. They have lives and priorities aside from you. That is valid.”
He wrote that if you need other people to behave in specific ways in order for you to be happy, you’re troubled. They won’t. And the issue is in how you’re thinking about it, that they need to do x in order for you to be okay, you’re relinquishing all your power to them. You are seeing yourself as a helpless victim who just has to take what you can get.
"Your problem is how you are framing the situation in your own mind, not what they are or aren’t doing. And you have absolute control over the thoughts you think and how you choose to perceive this situation. Use that power, it will make you feel better.”
People still communicate in different ways; some are constantly attached to their phones, while others want to disengage from them for chunks of time. But tensions over reply times may also come down to social norms – or the lack thereof. New developments in digital technology have outpaced the formulation of mutually agreed new communication paradigms, so when a text is sent, we’re not all responding according to the same ‘rules,’ Lufkin points out.