A WhatsApp message notification makes a sound on your phone. Maybe you’re working on a deadline. Maybe it’s Sunday, and you’re just recuperating from hosting yesterday’s iftar party for 40 people. You swipe the lock screen, check who it is, and decide to get back to it later. But now there is a small feeling nagging you in the back of your mind. It’s like an itch. You go on with your day, but that unresponded-to message spawns a hundred anxieties. What if they think I’m rude? What if they feel I’m not there for them? How annoyed am I when I get left on read? You can choose not to reply, but you cannot disconnect yourself from the sender’s expectation. And that is the whole problem with being constantly accessible: no time is fully yours.
In the olden days, when we had only landline phones, the social demands for availability were far less demanding. If you were there to hear the phone ringing, you’d pick it up. When you put the receiver back, the interaction was done. Only one channel of direct communication. This only spans the duration of the call. You were not expected to be near the phone all day. It was understood that you were available only at certain hours, when you were free from work or any family obligations. Most of life was spent “offline,” and no justification was needed for that. But now, the situation has flipped. With a messaging app and a WiFi connection, your availability is assumed. And if that checkmark on a message turns blue, your list of acceptable excuses for not replying quickly vaporises. Before, getting in touch with someone took effort. Now, explaining your absence requires the same effort. People seldom question why we’re online at a late hour, but they often complain about why we reply late.
There is an entire social code governing how and when we communicate, now that constant accessibility is the norm. Notifications are always on. Phones within reach. The guilt is quietly embedded in our psyche. If a reply is not sent on the same day, the message is clear: they’re not a priority. If you’re appearing as “online” in your messaging app, not responding promptly is an indirect rudeness. Read receipts (seen but not replied to) signal neglect or disrespect. Even posting a status on social media carries an obligation. Your friend might have once sniped at you, saying, “You’re free enough to post a story but not to reply to me?” Coping with all these unspoken rules is tiring. It requires vigilance throughout the day. We’re unable to clock out. So to establish some semblance of boundaries, we use the options at our disposal. Like turning off read receipts. Or disabling the current active/online status. This doesn’t combat social attitudes, but it gives some leeway to reclaim privacy. And anything that allows us to carve out a little space for ourselves is a welcome relief.
The irony is that the very thing that helps us connect better with each other also traps us. Messaging apps are immensely beneficial tools that make our lives easier and safer. But now we’ve gone to the other extreme. The ability to respond instantly also necessitates immediate action. And this condition did not happen by accident; it was cultivated structurally by the app features on the platforms we use. “Online” and “Last Seen” statuses track our availability in real time. Read receipts heighten the pressure to pause whatever we’re doing and respond right away. Message notifications alert us all day, keeping us locked in a cycle of constantly picking up and putting down our phones. These platforms profit from maximising the time we spend on them, and our mental well-being does not coincide with that. The functionalities in these platforms tout utility, but they fail to address the human cost behind the upkeep — a person perpetually tied to the schedule of the next notification.
We lose many things as a result of this. The ability to spend time with the person in front of us, fully present. The ability to focus on a task. But the greatest loss is that of our solitude. The ability to sit with our thoughts quietly without an inexplicable restlessness. Across cultures, self-reflective silence has remained the key to spiritual enrichment. Whether it is Buddhist monks meditating in monasteries or Muslims performing I’tikaf (sacred isolation and worship), withdrawing from noise is a necessity to reconnect with ourselves. Similarly, creative expression, scientific inquiry, or philosophical understanding all require thinking alone for hours as the ideas slowly take shape. But today, being unreachable is nearly impossible. Even if we try, it takes just one ping from our phone to interrupt the flow of our thoughts. Prolonged contemplation is a skill we no longer have the luxury to practise. We’ve become distanced not just from our focus but from ourselves. And the frustration this creates is a psychological trap we get more and more stuck in every time we prioritise being accessible over being present.
We’d love not to be bound, yet we give in to the social rules anyway. But maybe the fear of disappointing others is larger than what consequences we’ll actually face. What if we quietly decided today that we don’t need to defend our silence? Maybe we’ll get some taunts or a few complaints. Maybe it will sour a relationship or two. And then what? The earth won’t shatter. But what we will build is a network of people who understand our limits and respect our time. Isn’t that a good trade-off? After all, if being constantly available to others means being unavailable to ourselves, is it worth it?