Ghosting, Substack, and Privatized Attention

Modern friendship is a process of continuous ghosting. It’s not our fault, we’re just one of the unlucky generations for whom social technology has moved ahead of social norms. Like when the Brits discovered gin, and had to painstakingly invent norms against day-drinking once the cheapest drink’s alcohol content rose from 5% to 50%. Or when Americans got rich enough to afford cars, and decided to define courtship rituals and other rules that accounted for the fact that young people could spend unchaperoned time together wherever they wanted, with privacy and room to maneuver.

A good working definition of “ghosting” is that it’s the process of responding to someone more and more slowly until you never speak to them again. Anecdotally, it’s more common, although it’s hard to gather statistics on something that didn’t even have a name before.

It’s pretty rude to ghost someone when you’re talking to them in-person or on the phone, but ghosting is the default mode for text communication. When I first started talking instant-messaging, in 2001 or so, it was pretty standard to end a conversation with some kind of farewell. Signing off without a brb, much less a ttyl, would have been a faux pas.

But looking at my last dozen or so conversations in iMessage, Telegram, Signal, FB Messenger[1], the closest I get is conversations ending in “ok” or a thumbs-up emoji.

The switch probably happened with mobile. You wouldn’t say “goodbye” to someone if you were finishing a…