Millennials prefer instant methods of communication (e.g., messaging) because they are quicker and more direct. They are not the most efficient form of communication. It takes longer to get to your point on a call than it does via a message.
Sometimes people don't respond as a way of deliberately signaling they're annoyed, or that they don't want to continue a relationship. Turkle says sometimes taking a long time to write back is a way of establishing dominance in a relationship, by making yourself look simply too busy and important to reply.
Not getting messages has the opposite effect. We feel invalidated, unimportant, and excluded. This is why you feel so bad when someone doesn't respond to your texts. Someone who leaves your message on 'Seen' and doesn't respond is especially cruel.
74% of millennials rank text messages as their 'most used' communication method in their personal life.
Ignoring messages is frowned upon in these always-on times. At its most egregious, dropping out of communication is condemned as “ghosting,” which, in the years since the term became widespread, has become a deadly sin of digital communications.
“Bad at texting” is a red flag
If the person you're dating is “bad at texting” and they don't make an effort to communicate with you in other ways, they're probably not interested. … Or, they're giving the bare-minimum effort in order to keep you around without investing too much of their own effort.
Giving someone silent treatment is a form of manipulation. The silent treatment can be used to modify behavior. Being ignored has a huge effect on a person's mental state, so they're willing to do nearly anything to regain the manipulator's attention.
Millennials, as a rule, are almost always online. Oddly enough, their comfort with technology itself can be a barrier to communicating. They can be awkward with direct personal communication because of it.
Inflation is the top problem Gen Z and Millennials name as the biggest they are facing today. Over-dependence and addiction to technology ranked second as the top problem among young people for the first time. However, racism and COVID-19 are still top concerns for these gens.
They prefer written communication.
Most millennials would rather leave the telephone untouched and streamline their workload using written communication methods. Sending out a message via email or instant messaging is a quick, effective way to get in touch with someone.
No-reply text messages are also known as one-way text messages. One-way text messages are sent without the ability to receive replies, and it seems to be understood and accepted that some texts just don't require the ability to respond.
They're not interested in you
If this is a person of interest and they're ignoring your texts on purpose, they're not interested in you. That's really all there is to it. If they were a friend, it's something different.
Like the silent treatment, ghosting over text is a form of emotional manipulation, and can be very toxic. “Just because someone didn't get back to you in a manner that you consider timely is not a good reason to ignore them as punishment. It is immature behavior that starts a cycle of toxicity,” warns Resnick.
It's a common ADHD experience that I call 'involuntary ghosting' - a phenomenon that describes the disappearing act that happens when ADHDers forget to respond to texts.
Most of the time, when a guy doesn't respond to a text immediately, he's just busy. Either he is busy with work, or maybe he's visiting family. He could also be running some household errands. Give him some time, and he'll get back to you.
The New York Times cites that they've been called, “narcissistic, lazy, and indecisive. Millennials have been labeled the boomerang generation for the many unable or unwilling to leave their parents' home, or even more negatively, the Peter Pan generation because they supposedly won't grow up.”
Flexible and in control. More than anything, Millennials — those born from the early 1980s to early 2000s — want control of their lives, so build the tools that give them control. Millennial is not simply a generation. It is an attitude that is reaching across generations.
After conducting original research, we have found that millennials' challenges stem from a conflict between their desires and attainable goals. Our societal expectations have created tension for millennials who struggle to find ways to act like adults when financial pressures cause them to feel much more like children.
First things first: the silent generation includes anyone born from 1928 to 1945; the term millennial, essentially the grandchildren of the silent generation, includes anyone who was born between 1981 and 1996.
Speaking to men in social situations, psychologists attribute FOMO ("fear of missing out") on social opportunities as being the cause for an absence in eye contact when speaking or being spoken to. Another reason could be the conditioning through habitually looking down at our phone every few seconds.
Rejection involves being excluded from a social relationship or interaction. It can be active—for example in acts of bullying or teasing. Or it can be passive—for example in the acts of giving the silent treatment or ignoring someone (DeWall & Bushman, 2011).
Give them the benefit of the doubt, both experts agree. If you wait seven days, without sending a double text, and your inbox is still at zero, you should take that as a sign too. No response is a response, Fields says.
When we put ourselves out there by sending people messages on an online dating site (or many), we risk the chance of not getting a message back. But, let me be clear: Non-response does not equal rejection. In other words, the absence of a positive reply — a return message — is not the same as someone turning you down.