Imagine this: you are texting someone day and night. You both start getting to know each other and becoming more comfortable. Things are finally going your way. This one might be the one and work. But what if one day, out of the blue the other person stops answering. You send text after text, no answer. Snapchat after snap, nothing. The other person just ignores every attempt at communication. Your thoughts are going everywhere. What did I do wrong? Why won’t they answer me? Everything was fine just yesterday. This action of not getting a goodbye is called being “ghosted”.
Generation Z is out here making an impact on the world we live in right now. If you were born anywhere in between 1990 and 2001, welcome to the group that holds the future in our hands. We are also known as Millennials, the Internet Generation, some even claim we are the Generation of Google; we cannot remember the days of our lives where we did not have multiple televisions along with gaming consoles, a computer, or even a phone.
We can access Google, social media, messages, etc. in the palm of our hands through our phones. Although Millennials have our phones in our hands, we have the power to stop talking to people whenever we want, without an explanation causing the other to be anxious and wonder if we'll ever answer.
We were born in an age full of technology so we are accustomed to it having the newest hi-tech devices. Whereas if you hand your grandparent your iPhone, which we know how to use with our eyes closed, they will be bamboozled lacking any knowledge of technology. I can understand why we are also known as “Generation V” for virtual because we are so used to having technology in our everyday lives, to the point where some of us cannot go a day without our cell phones.
There was an assignment I did in my freshman English class where we were supposed to go 24 hours without our phone. A majority of my class, that is not that big, struggled with this activity and I’ve narrowed it down to one explanation: we are addicted to our phone. Not just the 16 of us in that class, and not just Salem State students. I’m talking bigger than that, I’m talking Generation Z. It’s not our fault, though. We were just born in a time where as we witnessed technology advancing along with our society.
Coming along with our addiction to our cell phones comes a problem among Generation Z: three dot anxiety. Three dot anxiety is the overwhelming feeling of anxiousness we get when the three bubbles appear on our iPhones informing us that the other person is typing out their message. It’s sad, isn’t it? It is not just one person, a lot of Millennials face this problem due to our strange addiction to our cell phones. We are so addicted to the point that we get anxiety worrying about what the other person has to say. People on Twitter are not shy to explain how they feel about seeing those petrifying three dots.
But what if those three dots go away and there is never an answer? Millennials constantly feel the need to move onto bigger and better things. Desiring to get a new pair of sneakers, a new phone, even a new person to talk to. Yeah, believe it or not, we have a mindset where we have a horrible fear of missing new opportunities. What I mean by that is we are scared of missing out on the new faces, the new things to come. We don’t like being strapped down, especially at this age. Generation Z is always looking for the next thing with a person, and for the old person? Some of us tend to drop it like it’s hot and bounce.
That right there is what is known as “ghosting”. Valeriya Safronova stated in her New York Times article "Exes Explain Ghosting, the Ultimate Silent Treatment," “Ghost, a word more commonly associated with Casper, the boy who saw dead people and a 1990 movie starring Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze, has also come to be used as a verb that refers to ending a romantic relationship by cutting off all contact and ignoring the former partner’s attempts to reach out.”
According to the online dating website known as Plenty of Fish, 80 percent of Millennials have been ghosted. That means that 80 percent of us have been dropped abruptly with no goodbye and no explanation as to why. People will stop answering any calls, texts, Snapchats, Facebook messages, etc. until the other person gets the memo that you no longer want to talk to them. Now that’s cruel, however, I have done it, a lot of us have done it. Maybe without even knowing we were “ghosting” a person because we just did it and were unaware that there is a name for the action of ignoring someone. Which adds to the stress of us dating in today's society along with being “Catfished” as well as being dumped via text.
Ghosting takes away the hardest part of relationships or seasonal flings: breaking up. Breaking up with someone is one of the hardest things we face in life. We have to build up the strength to explain to our current partner why we want to end it. Ghosting saves a lot of the “It’s not you, it’s me” talks we all dread and play over in our heads 100 times before it actually happens. However, it is not the right way out of things. Salem State University Freshman Dimitri Kapotas explains it as “Honestly I just ghost females cause sometimes I’m never truly satisfied.” So ghosting to him is an opportunity to go out and search for the new one to try to fill a void.
Another Salem State Freshman, Tommy Do, stated “I ghost girls because they can never be trusted” due to previous encounters with females leading him to this opinion. Wonder what if feels like to be on the receiving end? An anonymous SSU freshman from perfectly worded it: “I have been ghosted before, I'll never forget how confused and upset it made me feel. It kept me asking myself why he didn't want to be with me & why he could not just answer my text! It left me questioning every little thing as if I was all to blame. Being ghosted hurts the most because you never get the closure of a real break up, it makes you feel like shit because you have no explanation of why you're being ignored.”
Although Millennials have our phones in our hands, we have the power to stop talking to people whenever we want, without an explanation causing the other to be anxious and wonder if we'll ever answer. Ghosting is happening, whether we like it or not, due to our addiction to technology. With our phones, we are able to see new places, new clothing, and even new faces causing us to always think about the new and improving from the old.
Scared of being held down to one place or person, we like to adventure out to find what is next. Doing so we leave the old behind, sometimes not in the nicest way by ignoring them. It hurts the person being ignored and depending on how emotionally attached the person doing the ghosting is, it can hurt them too. We can ignore people and act like we don’t miss them but sometimes it is just for the better and it’s the way life goes. You get dropped, pick yourself up and dust yourself off so you can try again at love.
