Unread, Unsent, Unbothered: The Endowment Effect of Messaging and the Attention Economy

Sometimes, it’s a plan to reply later, a pause in the rush of digital life. Sometimes, my Instagram and TikTok therapists whisper in my ear that it’s okay to dwell beneath a rock, cocooned in solitude, and I take their advice to heart. Sometimes, I just don’t want to respond. Sometimes, I simply cannot. And sometimes, I need to breathe, to settle my heart before words spill out—especially when the text at hand tugs at something raw, a wound too tender for quick answers. There are countless reasons.

But then, there are those few who slip through the cracks of my Do Not Disturb fortress. They get a reply in seconds, in minutes, or whenever I can offer a moment of my time. There are friends who know me well enough to expect the rhythm of a 3–5 business day response cycle. They even make jokes about it—memes that say, "Adult friendships are about picking up where we left off after weeks of silence." And we do. Sometimes.

But the guilt creeps in. The "better late than never" doesn’t always soothe the hyper-aware brain, especially in a generation that’s crafted an entire rulebook around texting etiquette. Don't double text. Don’t seem too eager. Wait three days if you're dating. (Barney Stinson said so, and now it’s gospel?) It's exhausting. I mean—I’m basically a nun of no religious service, and even I feel the pressure.

There was a time when I used to overexplain in every reply. Now, I'm nearly monosyllabic with anyone outside my sacred circle. Because even a simple period feels like a death sentence, the older generation can casually send "Ok." and I’ll spiral into existential dread. I think of that Key and Peele sketch, where two people misread each other's tones over text until it nearly explodes. That’s me. Fully me. Add a "K" to the mix, and it's a full-blown thriller.

The act of replying has become a psychological sport. My brain does triage: the easy, funny, and casual messages go first; the hard, favour-asking, emotionally loaded ones go to the bottom of the queue. There’s a segmentation. Sometimes, I genuinely type something out and forget to hit send. Sometimes, I apologise, and when I get a "No worries" back, it feels like being hugged through the phone.

But it's not just about time. It's about emotional bandwidth. My closest people? We’re in sync across three different apps. We’re having layered, chaotic, beautiful, parallel conversations. Emojis on WhatsApp. Therapy on Instagram DMs. Delayed confrontation on iMessage—read, marinated, left untouched for weeks. The exceptions list is simple: I like them. I want them in my life.

And that matters. Because not everyone gets access to the looseness, the unfiltered-ness. The rest—well, they get templated civility. Sometimes nothing at all. It's like being admitted into a members-only chat club, where the dress code is trust and the bouncers are my mental health thresholds.

The weight of waiting for a text is a separate trauma. In the days of telegrams and letters, the slowness came with grace. Now, we live in a world where the "Delivered" tick, the "Read" tick, the online status—all add layers of anxiety. We've been conditioned by instant gratification and trained into agony when it doesn’t arrive. I tried exposure therapy by keeping my phone on Do Not Disturb. But then the temptation of the hidden notifications? Torture. A Greek tragedy in three acts: Ping. Peek. Panic.

Sometimes, not replying is relief. Sometimes, it's frustration. Sometimes, it's joy. But always, there’s performance. We’re not just texting—we’re curating tone, managing optics, matching energy. It's the silent revenge of delayed replies. It's the theatre of control. The illusion of not caring. Even when we deeply do.

So much of this is rooted in the economics of attention. The Hunger Games of our inboxes. We respond not to who pings loudest, but to who we've emotionally invested in. We subconsciously rank who deserves our energy. It’s behavioural triage. It’s resource allocation. It’s hyper-efficient emotional capitalism. May the odds be ever in your notification bubble.

The attention economy? Yeah, it’s basically this wild idea where our attention—yep, the thing we give away every time we check our phone or get sucked into an endless scroll—is now a commodity. A scarce one, no less. In today’s world, where everyone’s glued to their smartphones and social media is practically its own universe, our focus is the currency that fuels everything. Platforms and apps are in this intense race to grab hold of our time, our clicks, and, most importantly, our minds. What was once an afterthought—our attention—is now a luxury item, practically a goldmine in a digital world where companies fight to cash in on it.

But the funny thing? This whole setup doesn’t just sit there passively. It messes with how we think and act. We’ve been trained—yes, trained—to respond now. Instant gratification is the name of the game. Those push notifications? The dings? The likes? They pull at us like an invisible leash, creating this sense of urgency. It’s a tug-of-war between us trying to stay present in our own world and the tech world constantly shouting for us to look at me.

And here’s the kicker: we’re slowly burning out. Attention fatigue is real. We're in this cycle of being bombarded by messages, alerts, posts, and everything that demands our time, but, guess what? It makes it harder to actually decide on anything. Should I reply to that message now, or should I scroll a bit longer? Should I even care about that email? These daily decisions stack up, and more often than not, we’re operating on autopilot. We react without truly thinking, just going through the motions.

And it’s not just the volume of distractions. It’s how those distractions mess with us. Every time we check that notification, we’re hit with a mini interruption—it breaks our rhythm, pulls us out of whatever we were doing, and scatters our attention. All this fragmented focus means we’re spread thin, trying to juggle a dozen things at once without finishing any of them. Multitasking? Nah. This is a byproduct of how these platforms are wired to keep us engaged, constantly.

Here’s the thing: we think we’re in control. We think we’re deciding when to check our phones, when to respond, when to engage. But in reality? We’re just responding to the algorithm’s nudges. It’s all designed to keep us hooked, even if we don’t realize it. You know how we choose the quick win? That’s hyperbolic discounting in action. We’d rather respond immediately to the ping—that’s the short-term high—rather than keep our focus intact for something more long-term (like, I don’t know, actually enjoying our thoughts for five minutes without interruption?).

And here’s the kicker: when we check our phones or reply to a message, we’re selling our attention to the highest bidder. Whether it’s an app designer or a marketer, someone’s getting paid for it. We’re the product in all this. Our time, our focus—it’s being sold off, bit by bit.

Now, when you look at texting through the lens of the attention economy, it gets even more interesting. Replying to a message? It’s not just about urgency or importance anymore. It’s about how much attention you’re willing to give. Maybe you’re doing it to avoid the guilt of leaving someone hanging. Or maybe you just want to seem like you’re engaged in a relationship. Either way, replying isn’t just a simple act anymore—it’s a digital transaction. You’re deciding where to spend your attention, often without even realizing it.

And in the end, the price of that attention keeps changing. It's like this ongoing digital tug-of-war. We’re constantly deciding where we’ll throw our focus—who, or what, is worthy of our precious time.

The endowment effect explains our reluctance to let go—even of unread messages. We overvalue what we already own. A message thread with history—even an unresolved one—feels more valuable than starting anew. We hoard conversations like digital relics, simply because they once meant something. Our emotional archives are rarely about utility; they’re about perceived worth. Add in loss aversion, and it’s even clearer: we’d rather clutch onto the familiarity of silence than risk the emotional costs of reopening a door.

Combine that with decision fatigue—where every little action feels like a micro-decision—and it makes perfect sense why the reply button starts to feel heavier. And let’s not forget hyperbolic discounting: the psychological tendency to prefer a smaller reward now (scrolling memes) over a bigger payoff later (mending a relationship via that overdue reply).

The unread becomes sacred. The unsent becomes a diary entry. The reply becomes a declaration of worth. And yes, sometimes I reread messages just to feel something. Don’t @ me.

Underneath it all, there’s one simple truth: we’re all just trying to feel a little less alone in a world where everyone is always reachable but rarely fully present.

Or as Maya Rudolph might say in her Bronx Beat voice, “You know what it is? It’s too much. Too much tech. Too much talkin’. I don’t need this stress, Carol. I just wanna eat my bagel in peace.”

Disclaimer: Everyone at work is obviously on the exceptions list. I am just busy!

P.S. I think we should bring limited texting back. Only 100 texts a day plans.