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I’m not ignoring your message – I’m overwhelmed by the tyranny of being reachable (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A friend messaged me the other day. I saw it. I didn’t reply. A week later, I finally responded with the classic: Sorry for the late reply, just got to this.

She called me out. You didn’t just get to this, she said. I saw the double ticks.

Damn. She was right. I’d opened it. I’d registered it. But I’d also shelved it. It needed a proper reply, and at that moment, I wasn’t equipped.

Maybe it got lost between revisiting pictures from 2016 and the reminder I set to cancel my Nibble app 7-day trial on day 6. Maybe I got a call? Perhaps I’d wanted to sink back into that Substack article about reclaiming attention, ironically while still on social media. Maybe I was working one of the four jobs I need to survive under capitalism’s boot heel. Maybe I was doing nothing?

Does free time now equal availability?

I get a ping from the family group chat, which doubles as an IT helpdesk for my mum. My best friend just FaceTimed me about a White Lotus episode, and another left a voice note crying about a possible diagnosis. All this, lodged between videos of cats and genocide.

The boundaries between reception and response have collapsed.

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[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

In addition to the great tips here, I say, turn off as many notifications as possible. The only thing I get immediately are calls, SMS, and Slack+work email during office hours. Like many others said, if it's important, people will call me. Did I miss the message my brother sent the family group chat about his wife being pregnant? Yes, for two days, until he called me. I still found out months before the due date, and my family had a laugh about it. I feel like a fear of missing out is also a big part of these issues, and I think we should try to tell ourselves more that it's okay, important even, to not keep up with everything all the time.

this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025

178 points (99.4% liked)

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