It is time to abolish read receipts

At long last, Instagram is allowing its users to free themselves of one of the great sources of modern life: read receipts. For many of us, the new feature – which was announced this week – will reduce the anxiety involved in ignoring other people and being ignored in return, vastly increasing our digital freedom in the process.

I turned off read receipts, on every platform I could, years ago, and have never looked back. For me, the feature was a source of romantic anguish first and foremost. When I was single in my early twenties, I went through a phase, as many people do, of exclusively dating cold, aloof and indifferent men. The less interest they displayed – beyond, you know, regularly sleeping with me – the more determined I was to win them over: if I could persuade even this person - invariably someone I suspected of being incapable of human emotion - of my worth, the question would no longer be in doubt. On the other hand, I didn’t want to be part of any club that would have me as a member, and there was no greater turn-off than someone eager and reliable, who would text back promptly or unprompted, asking me what I was up to or sending memes throughout the day – I couldn’t prove anything important about myself by winning the affection of a schmuck like that.

With such a skewed set of values, it’s no surprise that being left on read for days on end (before finally, sometimes, being absolved with a “what’s up” which felt like an act of divine grace) was a regular feature of my romantic life – and oh, how I was tormented by those two little blue ticks! Oh, how they seemed to mock me! Sometimes, after giving in and submitting to the indignity of double texting, I would implement a strict regime dictating how frequently I was allowed to check my phone, or go to the cinema to pass the time in the hope that, when the credits rolled and I looked again, I would find that I had been granted relief. 

I eventually gained at first a morsel of self-respect and then steadily more. This was a long, incremental process which included many steps: cutting things off early when a prospective partner exhibited the first signs of flakiness rather than wallowing in abjection; swapping out Mitski and Lana del Rey for empowering anthems which allowed me to cast myself as a “diva”, and turning off my read receipts. In doing this, I was trying to take responsibility for my digital communication and how it affected me, and in a small way it worked, helping me to accept that the actions of other people – replying to a text or ignoring it, treating me badly or well – were entirely outside of my control.

I couldn’t will a response into existence by staring at my phone, or by knowing just how actively someone was choosing to ignore me (the absence of a read receipt, suggesting that someone hadn’t even bothered to open the message, offered little consolation.)  Being ignored by someone is inevitably hurtful, regardless of how it’s mediated through technology, but the idea that digital surveillance can ever be a useful tool in the search for romantic fulfilment will only hurt you more. Turning off read receipts was hardly a silver bullet which sorted out my life, but it did help me to become less abject over time.

Turning off read receipts helped me to accept that the actions of other people – replying to a text or ignoring it, treating me badly or well – were entirely outside of my control

I couldn’t will a response into existence by staring at my phone, or by knowing just how actively someone was choosing to ignore me (the absence of a read receipt, suggesting that someone hadn’t even bothered to open the message, offered little consolation.)  Being ignored by someone is inevitably hurtful, regardless of how it’s mediated through technology, but the idea that digital surveillance can ever be a useful tool in the search for romantic fulfilment will only hurt you more. Turning off read receipts was hardly a silver bullet which sorted out my life, but it did help me to become less abject over time.

The case against read receipts goes beyond the world of dating – turning them off is also a rejection of the demand that we should be available at all times. Obviously the most heinous example of this is the people who use them for professional emails, who should be imprisoned, but it can feel invasive in our personal relationships too. Back in my read receipt days, I would sometimes avoid opening a message from a friend, because I was too busy to reply at that exact moment and I didn’t want them to think I was ignoring them. Often, though, the message would slip further from my screen and – not having read it – my mind, and I would end up forgetting about it altogether; anxiety about digital etiquette had made me a more neglectful friend than I might have been otherwise.

We should, of course, make an effort to text back our friends and loved ones (I’ve never liked the idea that we “don’t owe” people anything), but a sporadic failure to do so is not always a snub, a slight, or an expression of indifference. Sometimes we’re busy, sometimes we forget, sometimes we don’t feel like it or have nothing to say at the time. By removing the expectation of immediate replies, we might arrive at a less fraught, less anxious and more satisfying way of communicating, and by banishing read receipts, we might find ourselves less tormented by the impregnable silence of a privately-educated marketing consultant. That said, if I send you an amusing picture of a raccoon – perhaps wearing a little chef’s hat or enjoying a bubble bath – and you don’t react with a cry-laughing emoji within a tight 30-minute timeframe, know that you are dead to me.