Technology has revolutionized how people communicate. We take for granted the fact that we can instantly drop a message to anyone anywhere in the world. And they can reply to it in an instant as well. People used to travel long distances to deliver messages, sometimes dying on the way. Those days are gone.
Despite its boons, technology is a double-edged sword. It has its cons. Calls and text messages may be instant, but they’re not as effective and fulfilling as face-to-face communication. Non-verbal communication is a big part of communication, and that context gets removed from texting, and to some degree, in calls. No amount of emojis can fully compensate for this loss.
The result?
Miscommunication, which is the breeding ground for conflict in a relationship.
People are addicted to people
Many people say that people are addicted to their devices nowadays. Everywhere you go, people seem to be hooked to their phones. This wasn’t normal twenty or even ten years ago. But now, it’s normal. In fact, a person not hooked to their phone comes across as strange.
The devices are not to blame.
People are addicted to people, not to devices. We’re social animals. We crave validation from other humans. When you see someone with their face buried in their phone, they’re likely not using Calculator or Maps. They’re probably watching a video of another human or texting one.
Getting messages from others is validating and rewarding. It makes us feel valued and gives us a sense of belonging. Not getting messages has the opposite effect: We feel invalidated, unimportant, rejected, excluded, or even depressed.1Slavich, G. M., O’Donovan, A., Epel, E. S., & Kemeny, M. E. (2010). Black sheep get the blues: A psychobiological model of social rejection and depression. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(1), 39-45. In ancestral times, social exclusion meant death more often than not. So we’re wired to feel bad when we’re excluded.2Lutz, S., & Büttner, C. M. (2025). “This Message was Deleted”: The Psychological Consequences of Being Out of the Loop During Messenger Use. Media Psychology, 1-25. The bad feelings motivate us to seek social inclusion. When we do, we feel good, and the bad feelings go away.
Even though texting is a modern invention, we still expect people to respond to our texts immediately as we would expect immdediate responses in face-to-face interactions. Because the mind didn't evolve in the texting era so it has no concept of delayed responses. It gets uncomfortable if a response is not received as soon as the message is seen by the Receiver.
Reasons for non-response
Let’s examine the possible psychological reasons someone didn’t respond to your text message. I won’t talk about practical reasons, such as them being busy or their phone’s battery being dead, only the psychological stuff.
1. Personality differences
Attachment styles
One’s attachment style can influence how they communicate, generally, and text, specifically. Avoidants may not respond to your texts when the conversation is getting too intimate, emotional, and personal. If you send a highly confrontational text to a dismissive-avoidant, in particular, they may not respond to avoid conflict. While those with the anxious attachment style desire constant connection, they may sometimes delay responding because they’re thinking about the ‘right’ thing to say that won’t harm the relationship.
Fearful-avoidants, in particular, are known for hot and cold behavior. One moment they're fully present and responding immediately, and another, they're gone, and you get no response or a delayed response.
Texting anxiety, introversion & narcissism
Some people don’t prefer texting. Just as some people have phone anxiety, others have text anxiety. They’ll see your message and think:
“I’ll call them later.”
Or:
“I’m going to see him on Monday anyway. I’ll catch up with him then.”
Others are introverts and communicate less in general. Their online behavior is a reflection of their offline behavior. Extroverts, in contrast, are more likely to engage in all forms of texting.3Schroeder, B. L., & Sims, V. K. (2018). Texting as a multidimensional behavior: Individual differences and measurement of texting behaviors. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 7(3), 361.
Narcissistic individuals are highly self-focused and lack empathy. Responding requires empathy and consideration for others. So it’s not surprising that they can be prone to not responding to texts or picking up calls.
2. Mental and emotional states
Mental health issues
If someone is struggling with their mental health, it might be hard for them to respond. Depression and PTSD can make a person withdraw socially, and that can show in their texting behavior as well. Those with ADHD are prone to distractions and forgetfulness. They may see your message and genuinely forget to respond.
Those with BPD and bipolar disorder go through intense mood swings. They might respond when they’re feeling good, but they can disappear when they’re feeling low.
Emotional regulation
Responding to texts requires mental and emotional energy. Some texts require more mental energy to process than others. If you send a complex, long-winded text to someone, you can’t expect them to respond immediately. They need time and energy to process what you said, formulate their response, and respond.
There are times when people cannot expend that much mental energy.4Agarwal, N. K., & Lu, W. (2020). Response to non‐response: How people react when their smartphone messages and calls are ignored. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 57(1), e260. Maybe they’re overloaded with responsibilities or information. Perhaps they’re overwhelmed at work. They have little or no mental energy left to allocate to responding.
3. Intentional communication choices
Lack of interest
Humans engage with what they’re interested in. They’re interested in what they find valuable. If someone is consistently not responding to you, it could be a sign that they’re not interested in talking to you. They probably won’t tell you that overtly to protect your feelings, but are letting you know subtly and politely with their non-responses.
Power dynamics
Establishing dominance
There are power dynamics in every human social interaction because humans are hierarchical animals with a hierarchical mentality. What that means is that power is often distributed unequally among the participants in any social interaction. As a general rule, people try to gain power over others in social interactions.
One way this is done is by ignoring messages. When a power-hungry person ignores your message, they’re communicating:
“You’re not worthy of my response. I’m superior to you and you’re beneath me.”
Have you noticed how people respond promptly to their superiors at work or someone they have a crush on? Your boss and your crush exert power over you. You put them on a pedestal. It’s much easier to ghost a random stranger on the internet and gain power over them. And that’s what happens. Their presence or absence in your life doesn’t affect you much.
Triggering to chase
Those who chase have less power than those who get chased. People chase valuable things. If someone triggers you to chase them, they gain power over you. So when someone doesn’t respond to your text, they might be wanting you to chase them. If you double or triple text them, you’re now the chaser and they are the chased.
If you get tired of chasing, they’ll give you enough attention (e.g., drop a text, send a meme, like a post) to trigger your reciprocity and make you chase again:
“Hey, where have you gone? Why are you not chasing me?
Punishment tactic
People can’t tolerate their power being taken away from them. As soon as they feel a loss of power in the interaction, they do what they can to regain power, even if it involves punishing you. One way of gaining power in an interaction is to be the one who ends the interaction. If you’re the one who ends the conversation, it’s implied that you need the other person less and therefore have power over them.5Agarwal, N. K., Mitiku, T., & Lu, W. (2022). Disconnectedness in a connected world: why people ignore messages and calls. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 74(4), 650-672.
“No you don’t get to end the conversation. I do.”
Real-life example 1
Recently, a person replied to my story on a social media platform. I responded normally. It was the usual “Hi’s and Hello’s”. I asked them a question and they responded with a voice message. A voice message is a huge investment, especially at this beginning stage of the relationship. Because people are reciprocal, I knew they were expecting me to respond with a voice message as well.
But I tend only to send voice messages when I have something long and detailed to say. So I responded to their voice message with a text message. I knew in that moment that they must have felt a loss of power. I knew they’d try to regain power as soon as possible, even though this was a small thing. A few days after that, I asked them a question and they didn’t reply. I was laughing so hard internally because I knew what was going on.
Real life example 2
There’s this other person on my WhatsApp who rarely replies to my stories, like once in 2-3 months. Recently, they replied, and we started a conversation. I noticed that they replied late, but I didn’t take ‘revenge’ by replying late as well. I replied when I could. But I did suspect their late reply was a power move, as it usually is. I ended the conversation, not because I wanted to gain power but because I had nothing more to say.
However, I sensed they might have suspected I deliberately ended the conversation to gain power. Since they were feeling a power loss, I knew they’d do something to regain it. But I didn’t know what. Funnily enough, they replied to the very next story I posted.
This was unusual because they had never responded to two of my stories in a row. I knew they were trying to regain power, so I gave them the chance to do it and test my prediction. Indeed, they left the conversation when I asked a question. I hope they’re happy with the power they regained. I hope it was worth it, and they feel a sense of achievement.
“Think about me.”
Another insidious power move is ignoring you so that you’re confused. When someone ignores your text most confusingly when you least expect it, they may be trying to ensure that you keep thinking about them. They know violating expectations triggers your evaluation mode, where you keep thinking about them:
“Does she like me? Why is she doing this if she likes me?”
They probably think about you more than you do. That puts them in a ‘low-power’ position. If you think about them more than they do, they’re now in a ‘high-power’ position.
There’s a difference between ignoring someone to hurt them and ignoring them because you don’t think they’re worth your time. The former is a game of power and control. The latter doesn’t have any malicious intent. For example, when someone gets a message from a telemarketer, they don’t respond because they’re not interested in doing business with the telemarketer. They don’t necessarily hate the telemarketer.
Coping strategies
Consider the context
Since humans are primarily emotion-driven creatures, we’re quick to assume that people have malicious intent toward us. You’re likely to pick an emotional reason when someone doesn’t respond to your texts.
“She must hate me.”
“He disrespected me.”
You’re more likely to personalize it than you are to make it about them. Knowing this should help you be careful when you’re quick to blame others. You want to first eliminate all the other possibilities before you decide they’re deliberately ignoring you.
If someone ignores your messages once, but they’ve never done it before, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Avoid accusing people of ignoring you based on a single data point. But you ought to take the hint when someone ignores you twice or thrice in a row. You’re free to cut them off from your life.
Dealing with conversation-enders
If it doesn’t make sense for the conversation to be over, i.e., you feel like they ended the conversation abruptly, it’s likely there was malicious intent. Ending the conversation whenever you feel like it, regardless of whether the other person is ready to disengage, can be a way to feel superior, as discussed above.
I’d suggest that you don’t take any immediate revenge against people who leave you in the dust by not responding to your question. Do nothing. If you’re not that close to them, avoid bringing it up or arguing over it. Carry on with your life and forget their existence. You don’t want to give them the satisfaction that you got emotionally impacted by them.
I went a step further with the person who sent me a voice message in Real life example 1 above. I occasionally liked their posts and stories even after they left me in the dust. It must have confused them like crazy. They deserved it.
When enough time has passed, you can quietly remove them and have one less nuisance in your life.
Avoid chasing and over-investing
I have already explained why chasing is a ‘low-power’ behavior. If you’re interested in someone, approach them or start a conversation by all means. But pay attention to how they reciprocate.
- Do they reciprocate at all?
- Do they make you feel like a fan who should feel lucky talking to them, a celebrity?
If you asked a question, it’s their turn to respond. Let them respond, or not, whatever they prefer. Don’t ask:
“Hey, where have you gone?”
“Did you see my message?”
“Why are you not responding?”
When you can’t respond
If you’re someone who doesn’t respond to texts, try to communicate the reason you’re not responding if you care about that person. Even short messages like these are helpful and can put their concerns to rest:
“Having dinner. TTYL.”
“With family.”
