There are two types of people in this world: those who have read receipts on and those who will do anything they can to make sure nobody knows when a message has been read. I’m definitely the latter, so when I discovered that there is a way to preview a message without sending a read receipt I was pretty elated.
I will go as far as using specific messaging platforms so that I can control whether someone can see if I’ve read their message. Most messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Apple Messenger and Signal have an on/off setting for read receipts, but annoyingly Facebook Messenger doesn’t. The best you can do is set your activity status to off so that no one can see you’re online.
In order to preview the messages (and this applied to any messenger platform), all you have to do is hold down the message you want to preview until a new window pops up. It’ll display the last few messages in the chat and give you the option to pin the message, hide alerts, and mark as read or delete the message. If you just want to read the message and do nothing else, you can just tap the screen and it’ll be as if you haven’t seen a thing.
There are various reasons why I don’t like people knowing when I’ve read a message. Firstly, there is a certain sense of pressure to reply as soon as you’ve seen it and in certain circumstances, this is neither clever nor healthy.
Say for example you’re in a heated discussion with someone, replying instantly takes away the time to think about what you’re saying and instead, you end up sending a reactive response. Often in the moment you can say something you don’t mean and might later regret, but not replying straight away gives you time to mull things over.
Or perhaps you’re working with a really exhausting client and you need to see what they’ve said, but don’t have the mental capacity to reply straight away. This hack will give you some time to think up a reasonable reply that is both honest and firm.
On the flip side, you might be excited to read a message but not want someone to know just yet out of fear of seeming overly keen. Anyone who’s had to navigate the world of dating will know exactly what I mean. While dating is not about playing games, this seems to be a trap everyone falls into.
Whatever reason you have for not wanting to know when people have read a message, this sneaky hack solves all your problems. You can still be nosey and find out what’s been said only you don’t need to give it away. Next time you find yourself in a position where you want to know what someone has messaged but want time to think about your response, use this hack and you won’t look back.
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