In May 2015,Gizmodo’sAdam Clark Estes suggestedbanning read receipts altogether.
Id venture a guess that you, like most people, fall into the anti-read receipts camp.
Maybe you think read receipts keep things a little too honest.
Courtesy of Apple / Stephanie Indrajo
Maybe youve had them crush your soul on occasion.
Or maybe you just think they make you seem like an asshole.
I get all of thatbut hear me out.
Davis and Ross have a point: Read receipts do hold us accountable for our texting etiquette.
But why do we feel the need to hide behind delivered when we know read is more honest?
Is it such a hassle to justI dunnocommunicate that?
Last March, I got into a text-centric argument with my then-boyfriend.
After we shot a few angry messages back and forth, he stopped responding to me.
It was around 6:00 P.M. on a Saturday, and he went straight-up radio silent.
I didn’t hear from him again until the following afternoon.
But because he didn’t have read receipts turned on, I didn’t know that.
Thats the kind of person a lot of us are, though.
In October, my roommate sent her boyfriend a text message while she wasvacationing in Europe.
Her international plan was being wonky, and the text never went through.
(For the record, she didnt send any of them.)
The next morning, he replied telling her his phone had died so he hadnt seen her initial message.
Oh yeah, and hed love to hang out.
This argument holds some weight.
Whereas delivered leaves us in the dark, read offers clarity.
That youre being ignored is not a fun thing to figure out.
Plus, it’s not like the read receipt is the issue.
It was my then-boyfriend’s choice to disappear on me for 18 hours.
We do ourselves a disservice when we shoot such a frank, honest messenger.
But Ive found a way to manage those expectations while keeping read receipts on: I leave texts unread.
I turned on my read receipts in January 2016, and I havent had any trouble temporarily avoiding texts.
(I temporarily avoided the hell out of texts this weekend, for example.)
Doesnt that defeat the purpose of turning on read receipts in the first place?
Arent you being just as shady by selectively ignoring texts, even just temporarily?I dont think so.
When my friend receives a read receipt, they know they have my full attention.
And until then, they understand that Im too busyemotionally, physically, or otherwiseto respond to their query.
This approach has two unintended, but very welcome benefits.
First: It holds me accountable.
Im a pretty forgetful person, but this makes it downright impossible to drop the ball.
Second: You know how I said read receipts keep me from freaking the f*ck out?
They keep my friends from freaking the f*ck out too.
Because they know I have read receipts on.
That saved them some mental agony, and it kept me from being inundated with worried follow-up texts.
But I will soon!"
Which is something we could all stand to do a little more of, right?
It is in these fleeting blips of connection that I feel most noticed.
And seen, rather than exposed.
