r/Senegal • u/Mouhameth26 • 3h ago

Keeping read receipts ON and waiting to open messages is a superior communication strategy than turning them OFF. Change my mind.

I see a lot of people turn off read receipts because they want privacy or want to avoid the pressure of replying right away. But honestly, keeping them on and just waiting to open a message until you actually have the time and mental bandwidth to reply is a much cleaner way to handle communication.

Here is my take on it:

  1. Plausible Deniability: When you keep read receipts on and leave a message unopened, no social contract has been broken yet. To the person texting, you are just busy or offline. A single or double grey checkmark saves them from overthinking because they just assume you haven't seen it.

  2. The Limbo Problem: When people turn read receipts off, it creates a weird guessing game. The sender knows you are active and sees days go by, but they have no way of knowing if you actually read it or not. That gray area causes way more second-guessing and anxiety than a simple blue checkmark ever would.

  3. Quality of Response: By waiting to open a message until you can actually engage with it, you avoid the trap of opening something, getting distracted, and leaving someone hanging for days. When I finally open a chat, I reply right away.

For me, if I know I cannot reply immediately, I simply do not open the notification or the app. It protects my time, keeps expectations clear, and avoids looking like I am intentionally ghosting someone.

Am I missing something here, or are people who turn read receipts off just avoiding basic accountability? How do you guys handle your chats?

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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5

u/Anicha1 Senegalese 🇸🇳 / 🇺🇸 2h ago

I get it but sometimes I want to read it and I don’t want to respond at all. If I want to make sure that I read it and respond, then I’ll make sure to select unread after I read it.

4

u/Evening-Decision8712 Lebanese 🇱🇧 2h ago

100% agree. Some people out there turn on read receipts to check if others saw their messages and then turn it back off 😂

1

u/Skyogurt Senegalese 🇸🇳 57m ago

I don't really overthink these things. If I'm sending someone a text, the default is that they can reply whenever they want, even if it takes them weeks, or just never reply if they don't feel like it. People have lives, are busy, unexpected things happen, they can forget, etc etc. It's not a big deal. And if I for whatever reason I need them to reply urgently then I'll send a voice note or just call them really.

The features that companies are putting on our messaging apps are geared towards maximizing our time spent and engagement on these platforms. They're not designed for optimal human communication. So we shouldn't let them shape our socializing framework otherwise we're have all these digital constructs that make us more disconnected really