With instant messaging apps bringing the activity status of users to the forefront, it is often mistaken or is taken for granted by our online friends that we are/ may/ could ignore them if we do not respond to their messages.
WhatsApp was probably first (if I'm not wrong) to introduce the Online status to the large, along with the "last seen at ..." & the blue ticks to bring a sense of understanding to friends as to when you are last online & what have you read. Then, Instagram has got the green dot, likewise on LinkedIn and late to the party - apps like Microsoft Teams has joined the surge.
While users have a choice to control the privacy on WhatsApp by hiding or restring the last seen status to contacts or nobody, the online status still seems to be hard to hide.
So what?
While most of these help people to understand if the other person has seen their texts or not, I've seen the flip side of it that bothers me often. There are few people who'd pursue to get replies - especially if they find out that you're online.
My usual online usage involves snooze, mark-as-unread features a lot so that I can get back later even if I've seen some notification.
And yet I see messages like "I know you saw the message", "You didn't reply?". Isn't it smart enough & safe to assume in 2020 that each & every person may have a different way of using the internet applications?
I'd probably term this assumption of "the person is online and has to reply" thingy as 'Online Generalisation' or to put it in a better way: being judgemental online.
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