Season of 'seenzoned' & too many notifications

The weight of too many notifications is leading to a shift in the way people communicate on the internet

- Shephali Bhatt

Nipun Jain has a complicated relationship with social media notifications. When she receives one, the 26-year-old artist finds herself-reacting to it in her head but often forgets to share her reaction with the sender. "If it's something funny they send, for instance... I see, I laugh, I move on." Two days later, she realises she has missed responding but a "haha" won't suffice now, "so you tell yourself you will send a proper reply in a bit". That almost never happens. "I think I have lost touch with several acquaintances because I didn't reply to their mention or message. And they stopped engaging after a while," says Jain, who works as a marketing professional in Gurugram, Haryana.

Incoming notifications drain her but when the tables are turned, she doesn't like being seenzoned, a situation where your text is seen but not replied to. Recently, she left a heartfelt comment on a writer-lifestyle-creator's Instagram post. It has yet to receive any form of acknowledgement, be it a thank you, a smiley, or even a simple heart reacji (reaction emoji). Generally, people don't expect to be acknowledged by celebrities with millions of followers, though some still reply to their posts, especially on Twitter, as it allows them to be discovered by more users. But this was not even a popular account, Jain says, adding that the user had no more than 3,000 followers.

"Somehow, I have already started disliking this person now. It has gotten to a point that I skip their Instagram Stories when they appear in my feed," she adds. "I have revisited the post in question a few times to check if the user has replied to other people's comments. (They haven't)."