ruminating on read receipts

why the two ticks mean so much

one obsession of mine is tracking which communication styles only work when texting, and which ones only work face-to-face. one obvious difference is expected responsiveness: texting is inherently asynchronous. there are many settings which you can tune on your texting app of choice ¹. out of all the settings, i will argue that having read receipts on or off is the most impactful decision for your social life.

i have always left read receipts on and i have always responded to texts instantly. this is a conscious decision, i believe your personality shines through the most when you don't overthink your messages. if i want to date the person i am texting with, i lean into this more, to signal who i am and that i am not playing communication games. establishing this trust in your texting style and personality benefits everyone who texts you in the long run. i've noticed the most unresponsive people usually have read receipts off. my friends know i am responsive.

i can see the case for turning read receipts off, though. people like the freedom to read a message and respond at a time that fits them. it can also be a status and image thing, people might want to be considered busy ². privacy considerations are similar to the freedom argument, but might be rooted in difficult circumstances the person finds themselves in, like texting with mentally ill people. basically, these are all arguments for people reading something and not responding, which is why read receipts have a bigger effect on the person reading than the person sending.

except in psychopath ex or dysfunctional family circumstances, i believe turning off read receipts does a person more harm than good. or said differently, you can improve your personality by just turning read receipts on. you free yourself from what i like to call the "plausible deniability lifestyle". you can see this lifestyle everywhere, delivery drivers eating some of your ordered fries, masking passive aggressive comments, reading a message but not sending read receipts. you probably caught on, my point is not about fries or read receipts. it's about how many tiny ways we've found to avoid being fully honest, fully present, or fully accountable. the simple act of turning read receipts on and responding instantly is a big rebellion against all the mini-rebellions of plausible deniability. fully engage with life, leave your read receipts on.