There was a time – not so long ago – when silence bore no particular meaning. You sent a message and waited. Sometimes minutes. Sometimes days. Sometimes forever. The absence of a response was ambiguous, uncharged, even serene.
Then came the read receipt.
A small signal, barely a flicker: two blue ticks, a quiet “seen,” a timestamp stamped in pixels. It promised clarity but arrived with tension in tow. Suddenly, we knew when we had been witnessed – and more painfully, when we had not been answered.
The backlash was swift. Messaging platforms scrambled to offer opt-outs. Privacy, people said. Boundaries. Mental peace.
And yet, I leave mine on.
Not because I revel in exposure, or reject quietude. But because I believe – without irony or sentimentality – that doing so is a moral choice. A small one, yes. But real nonetheless.
To understand why, it’s worth examining the humble read receipt through the lens of normative ethics – not etiquette. This is not a question of preference. It is a question of how we show up for one another in a digitized world, and what we owe to those who reach for us.
From a consequentialist view – what matters are outcomes. Do read receipts do more harm than good?
Critics argue they create anxiety: the pressure to respond immediately, the obsessive parsing of a delayed reply. And they’re not wrong. But this discomfort often arises from cultural habits, not the feature itself. We conflate being seen with being obliged, as though acknowledgment were a summons. We conflate being seen with being obliged like that small twinge when you watch your message turn blue, pulse quickening in the hush, waiting for a response that never comes, as though the mere act of acknowledgment were a summons.
But in a more emotionally evolved world, read receipts offer something else entirely: closure. They confirm that a message has landed. That one is not shouting into a void. They prevent needless repeats, anxious follow-ups, or corrosive uncertainty.
In this light, read receipts – used wisely – reduce relational friction. They enable a kind of silent grace. No reply required. Just a confirmation that one’s words arrived.And so, consequentially, they are more balm than burden. The harm lies not in the feature – but in our unreadiness for its quiet honesty.
From a deontological perspective, the question is not what works – but what’s right. Do we have a duty to acknowledge others when they reach out? When someone speaks to us , digitally or otherwise – they engage in a moral act: they address us. In turn, we are ethically situated to respond – not necessarily with words, but with recognition.
In physical space, we nod. We glance up. We murmur, even if only faintly. But in the flattened dimension of messaging, those gestures vanish. The read receipt becomes their digital equivalent – our only means of saying: Yes, I see you.
To turn it off, when one has in fact read the message, is to withdraw from that obligation. It is to pretend we were never addressed at all. And so, viewed through the lens of moral duty, disabling read receipts without cause is not a neutral act. It’s an avoidance of the smallest form of ethical presence.
Virtue ethics does not ask what we should do, but who we wish to become. What kind of person chooses to quietly acknowledge others when it’s easier to slip into the shadows? Perhaps someone who values transparency over control, integrity over convenience and connection over comfort.
Leaving read receipts on is certainly not a display of purity, It is an act of trust – an openness to being seen without panic or pretense. It suggests a character willing to participate in the slow labor of shared meaning, even when it feels vulnerable.If we believe that virtue is formed through repetition, then every moment of silent acknowledgment becomes part of our ethical musculature. A small but strengthening act.
When we look into social contract theory, digital conversation, like all interaction, rests on implicit agreements. When I message you, I enter into a contract – not to demand a reply, but to hope I haven’t been dismissed without trace.
Read receipts honor that contract. They are the modern equivalent of a returned glance, a lifted eyebrow, a door not shut in silence. They let both parties remain visible within the social frame.
To disable them unilaterally is to alter the terms of that contract without consent. It creates an asymmetry: I see you, but you may not know that I did.
Fairness frays in such asymmetries. Mutuality dissolves. And the social web, thread by invisible thread, weakens.
All of this – ethics, outcomes, habits – boils down to something ancient and simple: the moral necessity of being present. A read receipt is not a reply. It is not an obligation. It is the lowest denomination of recognition. A silent yes to another’s existence in your space.
To disable it casually is to choose opacity over presence. Not always cruelly. Sometimes protectively. There are valid exceptions – abuse, coercion, power imbalance and probably few more. In such cases, invisibility is safety, and safety must come first.
But in the ordinary exchanges of friends, colleagues, partners, and family, the gesture of acknowledgment is not a vulnerability – it is a gift. A modern nod. The signal that says: You spoke. I listened.
I leave my read receipts on because I want the people in my life to know when I’ve heard them. Even if I need time. Even if I never reply. I do not want to become a person who hides from the simple act of saying: I received you.
That is not just etiquette.
That is ethics.
Two blue ticks. That’s all.
But sometimes, that’s everything.
