Read receipts evoke a love/hate relationship. I’m guilty of having them and quickly learned the pros and cons. Pre-warning: the pros and cons are left up to interpretation.
1. Once you open a text — the other person knows you’ve seen it, so you pretty much have to reply. I used to have a bad habit of opening texts and forgetting to respond, having read receipts helps me to avoid doing that.
2. If you don’t want to talk to someone and you want that to be clear, a “read” notification under their sent text with no response sends a pretty clear message.
3. Unless you accidentally open their text and don’t reply or forget to without intending to, you look like a j@ck@$$.
4. The pull-down method allows you to read the text without opening it a.k.a. you don’t have to reply until it’s convenient for you (or ever) and they simply think — ‘Oh they just haven’t read my text’.
5. Until the pull-down notifications method is seen used by your boyfriend or best friend and you’re left thinking “UHM EXCUSE ME — I KNOW YOU HAVE YOUR PHONE — REPLY TO ME,” after your unread text is unread for too long.
6. When you text someone for the first time and you see they have read receipts too, you feel an instant connection because you live your life on the same page with how you use your apple products (did we just become best friends?!?!!?).
7. Nobody wants to be that obnoxious dude that has 50+ unread texts in their inbox because they have read receipts. It screams: I AM SO POPULAR. Forget ever sending a screenshot of something because of the nagging high number in the top left of your iMessage.
8. You can’t use the leave it unread method on your parents. They know you always have your phone, so they either think you’re intentionally ignoring them or you’re in great danger (it’s always the first one).
