Why Waiting For People To Respond To Texts Makes You Anxious
BuzzFeed - Latest 2014-09-08
Summary:
Waiting for that message is causing us to all freak out. Meanwhile, the inventor of the “…” bubble says we’re always disappointed with the outcome.
If you have an iPhone, you'll understand the sheer stress of waiting for a reply to a text message when all you can see is this:
That little grey bubble with its ellipsis is the worst thing about iMessage.
You simply cannot DEAL with how long the message finally takes to send. The ellipsis is basically saying, "Hey, I've read your message and I'm writing a really long response that will cause shock/sadness/whatever feeling you don't want right now."
The ellipsis bubble stems from the '90s dial-up internet era, Bennett said. In those good old days, we received an alert to say when someone was online and when a message was delivered. In 2005, Blackberry introduced an alert for "(name) is typing..." to BBM, and a few years later, Apple introduced the dreaded "..." bubble.
Our feelings for the "..." bubble are also due to our innate sense of curiosity. Paul Dourish, a professor who studies the intersection of technology and society at the University of California, told Bennett: "The awareness indicator as implemented on the iPhone is a curious beast – it conveys that something is being done, but it won't say what. It's curiously coy."