Do you consider ghosting people a reasonable way to deal with today’s overwhelming and constant information and notification overload? Or do you find it offensive and unfriendly?
Would you equate it to a person ignoring you irl or is ignoring a text different?
For this post let’s assume the people involved are or were in the past friends, and ghosting is leaving someone on “read” for more than 2 days.
I think there are a couple of things to pick apart here. First off, the main question:
Yes, I would equate it to that. But as ignoring someone in real life, context matters.
Are or were? Because that’s a very important distinction. Because if you are friends, that’s a pretty nasty thing to do. If you’re friends, you’re most likely important in their life. Ghosting can be especially hurtful in that kind of situation, because they trusted and maybe even relied on you to a certain extent.
If you were friends, why are you not friends anymore? Did you just drift apart? Than it’s not great to ghost them. Them texting you can mean that you’re still important to them and that they would like to actively work on mending your friendship. If you don’t want the friendship anymore, say it. And if they don’t accept it, then you can ghost them. Did you cut off the friendship because they were abusive? Are they bombarding you with messages or trying to compel you to do something? Then go right ahead and ghost them.
If a friend or a former friend messaging you (normally, I’m not talking about bombarding you with messages here) is a part of your constant information and notification overload, that’s a problem in and of itself. Take a look at what is part of that notification and information overload. What is important for you and what can you do without? I would think, for instance, that messages from friends are more important than notifications from social media (including the notification you may have gotten from this reply). Take some time to filter that out. And if you really have too many notifications from friends and feel the need to cut down on the number of friends, first off consider if it’s really the case and you’re not running the danger of isolating yourself (take a good look at this, it is way too easy to ignore or not notice but can have serious consequences), and then talk with the affected friend directly and explain your situation. At least then they know what’s going on and you were fair to them.