Why don’t you answer my message? Why do you leave me insight? If you are online, why don’t you respond to what I’ve written? This and other questions assail us while the mobile screen remains unperturbed, without vibrating, without showing the WhatsApp of a notification … Despair increases and the lack of response devours us, snatches our calm until it becomes our only concern.
If this situation is known to us, we will be suffering what is known as the double blue check anxiety. And no, it is not a trivial issue. The amount of time we spend waiting for that virtual feedback is immense; Not to mention the mental and emotional impact.
The need to get a response, reply and interaction to our messages is almost the same as an addict experiences.
Hyperconnection, the need for immediacy and instant reinforcement have changed our way of relating for some time. It is as if for many people there was an unsigned pact, one for which one is obliged to respond immediately to each message, to each photo or comment where they label us. If we are not quick to issue some kind of interaction, doubt and concern arise in the virtual issuer.
Misunderstandings, discussions, stress, insomnia, poor performance in the study or work … The relationship between immediate messaging services and anxiety disorders is as significant as recurrent.
We know that almost 80% of our young people suffer from it and that, at present, it is one of the most common problems in our daily interactions with others.
Why don’t you answer my message? The psychology behind text messages
Why don’t you answer my message? It has been several minutes, maybe hours and we still haven’t received any response. Neither an emoticon nor a smiling face nor the emoji of a thumbs up, so helped for almost everything. For people with an already impatient character, these types of situations can be desperate.
In addition, especially they are if the receiver is someone significant. As for example, that person we are beginning to know, that attracts us and with whom we hope to establish a daily interaction.
Affective relationships are based on text messages, notifications loaded with double meanings, good morning and good night messages, photos and a whole subtle universe of virtual languages.
The same is also true for our friends. Somehow, we wait for them to be quick in their responses and not leave us in the limbo of waiting. At the end of the day, as multiple studies reveal to us, people look at the cell phone – on average – about once every fifteen minutes and expect an almost constant flow of interaction, notifications to post and messages to send or respond.
If that flow is interrupted, if someone important to us does not answer, does not read us or let the hours pass without showing signs of interest, an alarm switch is turned on in us.
Text messages and dopamine
At the beginning, we compared the need to receive a response to a message with the anxiety that an addict may experience. That relationship is not accidental and the key is in our brain reward systems, orchestrated by a very specific neurotransmitter: dopamine.
When we send a very affectionate message, an audio or a funny and original meme, if there is something we love is that the other person responds. That interaction where exchanging phrases, laughter, and complicity makes us feel very good. It is like a “high”, one of many that we experience throughout the day with immediate messaging and likes.
Thus, that feeling of pleasant pleasure, emotion, and well-being is mediated by dopamine. Hence, when this flow of interaction fails and we ask ourselves in anguish, why don’t you answer my message? What we experience is yearning and anxiety. We are not receiving our “dose” of dopamine and emerge, almost without realizing it, withdrawal syndrome.