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For the past few weeks I’ve been mostly avoiding Facebook Messenger on my phone. I realize that I already do that fairly often without meaning to, but this time is slightly different. It started out as a passive non-decision–That is, I just ignored new messages when they arrived and told myself that I’d respond later or something. You know, the normal kinda thing that I do when I’m just not feeling socially able to deal with it right away.

After a little while I decided to make a conscious choice to stop responding to messages. Unless somebody needed an immediate response for something important, I would just ignore the messages. This made it an active choice that I made. Instead of simply neglecting to check messages or open notifications, I was actively ignoring people by choice.

Side note: I’m just spewing things as they come to mind… so this post may not make sense totally.

Now, if I’m ignoring Messenger intentionally vs unintentionally, does that make a difference? Like, should I feel bad about ignoring people that are wanting to talk to me? I think that it depends, but largely I shouldn’t feel bad about it.

See, the reason that I wanted to actively choose to ignore messages is so I wouldn’t feel obligated to respond. Does that make any sense? Maybe not. But for me, knowing that I don’t have to respond to messages helps take the pressure off.

Everyone and everything is trying to get our attention these days, and it’s quite invasive because we each have a phone with us pretty much all day long. I have my phone with me a lot, and with it I carry a slight sense of obligation that society sort of attaches to modern life. We need to be available, connected, and totally up-to-date on everything. God forbid that we aren’t informed about the latest happenings or newest trends. Everyone needs to throw in their two cents and react.

Where was I going with this… Ugh. I need to gather my thoughts again.

I think my point was that Messenger comes with a sense of obligation. By consciously choosing to ignore Messenger, I kinda remove that feeling for myself. I’m no free to respond or not respond as I wish! Sure, nothing’s actually ch