One of the most annoying aspects about communicating on many social media networks is that read receipts are given to the others in a conversation which a sender may not want other people to know. As this can result in privacy issues or general awkwardness when a recipient sees that a message has been read but not replied to, this article discusses the different ways in which users are able to disable this feature on the mobile device.
The Psychological Impact of Read Receipts
Let’s say your friend has been posting about sleep deprivation or increased stress since the start of the pandemic. You want to find a way to help them, so you send them some information on a sleep and stress test to their direct messages box. You check back a few hours later to find that they’ve read the message but gave no reply.
If you’re like most people, seeing a read notification with no response sends you into a panic. Was it them that actually read the message or someone that had access to their account? Did they find the information useful, or do they find your actions intrusive? Maybe, you shouldn’t have sent the direct message after all.
Although the reason for no response from your friend could be something as simple as they forgot or wanted to do some research first, your mind often goes to the extreme. That’s why it may be ideal for some people to simply deactivate this feature on their social media platforms for peace of mind.
For iOS Devices
One of the most common tools that is used on the iPhone is iMessages which sends texts and also displays the read receipts. However, this can be turned off quite simply so that the sender of a message is not notified once the user has read their message. In order to do this, users must first go into their Settings app, Messages, and then toggle the Send Read Receipts button. Once these steps have been taken, the sender of a message will no longer see that a user has read their message once they have. While Android devices do not have read receipts for the texts that are sent on the default texting app, this is not applicable to non-iOS devices.
For WhatsApp
For those who are looking to remove the read receipt of messages that are sent through the WhatsApp app, users are able to do so right on the app. In order to deactivate this feature, users first need to open their WhatsApp application, click the three vertical circles on the top right side of the screen, and then select Settings. From there, Accounts need to be selected and then Privacy. From the privacy screen, the Read Receipts option can be switched on or off depending on the preferences of the user. If the box remains unticked, the sender of a message will not be notified of when the receiver has actually read the message but instead only know that the message has been delivered. Furthermore, the toggling of the settings is applicable to both the iOS and Android versions of WhatsApp to simplify the process.
Facebook Messenger
Although the Facebook Messenger app does not have specific settings which users are able to stop the read receipts from occurring, a trick that lets users read messages without sending an actual receipt is to simply pull down on the top of the screen or the pull down menu at which point users can preview the message without the app actually recognizing this as read. In doing so, users are able to read entire messages that have been sent through Facebook without sending the read receipt although a drawback to this method is that users are not able to reply to the messages but can simply only read it without having the sender see the receipt. However, replying to the message requires users to open the app at which point it will be marked as read to the original sender or group chat.
For those who are looking for ways in which to stop the sender of messages from seeing that they have read it, this article discusses the various ways users can stop the read receipts from being sent. For various apps on both iOS and Android devices, these methods can prevent read receipts from being sent through iMessages, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger which are some of the most popular apps that contain read receipts. Using the outlined methods for these apps, most read receipts will no longer be sent to any of the original senders for a greater degree of privacy.
