PING-PONG COMMUNICATION: The New Ethics of Digital Interaction

Miquel Salvadó-Gracia — philosopher and researcher in the field of energy transition

«The ball is in your court» is a phrase used to indicate who is responsible for taking the next step in a given matter. This metaphor, often carrying a hint of ultimatum, reflects a type of communication dynamic that has become normalized in the digital age: ping-pong communication. Just like in a game of ping-pong, where the ball moves rapidly back and forth across the net, a similar pattern has taken hold in our mobile chats. Messages travel through the net from one smartphone to another, alternating back and forth: «If I was the last to write, now it’s your turn to reply».

This logic applies to any platform — WhatsApp, Tinder, Telegram, Instagram Direct, Snapchat, or Facebook Messenger. If you don’t return the ball from your digital court, you risk committing what’s commonly known as leaving someone on read.

Leaving someone on read is a colloquial expression that refers to not responding to a message that has already been read. It’s often perceived as a sign of disinterest or disregard: «She saw my message and didn’t reply», «I’m not his priority», «They don’t care about our relationship». But there are no clear rules for this phenomenon. How much time must pass before it becomes offensive? Two hours? Twelve? A day? When does ghosting ⓘ begin?

The solution seems simple: reply as quickly as possible. The message content matters less than meeting the key expectation: reacting immediately. The ethics of leaving someone on read hides a moral pressure toward instant response. The uncritical acceptance of this new value system partly stems from what’s known as the invisibility of technology.

This concept refers to how technology becomes so integrated into daily life that people stop consciously noticing it. But invisibility doesn’t mean innocuous. History professor Melvin Kranzberg, in the first of his Laws of Technology (1986), stated: «Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral». The same goes for instant messaging apps.

In a society where more and more interactions — be they work-related, intimate, or recreational — take place through apps, it’s essential to reflect on how these tools silently shape our behavior and our moral judgments.

Ping-pong communication exemplifies a relational dynamic typical of the placeless space that is the internet. Contemporary societies, still trying to find their bearings in this cyber world, often transfer expectations from the physical world to the digital one without much thought.

And that’s where the fundamental error lies, because when we interact face to face, we receive essential nonverbal cues for mutual understanding — things like tone of voice, facial expression, or body posture often speak volumes. The loss of this nonverbal language in online conversations alters the basic principles of communication as we once knew them.

By joining the Huxley friends club, you support philosophy, science and art

Join the friends club

In an attempt to humanize chat conversations, emojis and GIFs have become increasingly prominent. The use of these generic symbols has evolved in recent years to fit the new communication reality. Emojis — visual messages without nuance, once used almost exclusively by younger people in informal settings — have made their way into even the most austere phones.

It’s no longer strange to find them in work-related WhatsApp groups or in grammatically correct messages typed with the right index finger by the most serious boomers. Though expressed through different codes, the imperative of a fast reaction cuts across generations.

From this perspective, notifications serve the same purpose in the ethics of leaving someone on read as church bells or the call to prayer in mosques. They remind us — without being asked — that we must behave according to a specific set of values. Notifications are a kind of digital nudge.

This concept describes a subtle persuasion technique based on behavioral psychology that guides people’s decisions without restricting their options. It involves tweaking the environment — in this case, the software — to influence choices without applying direct pressure. Failing to disable notifications means giving up control over a part of your attention.

What was a race between nations in the 1960s to reach outer space, has now become a competition between companies to capture our attention in the digital space. These companies exploit our still poorly managed addiction to the dopamine bursts triggered by apps. In this new area of the economy, both our time spent on platforms and the data we generate are monetized. In other words, the harnessed attention of millions of people creates enormous economic profit for a small group of business executives.

At this point, we can either go with the mainstream and accept the values behind leaving someone on read: treating our phones as another guest at the table, sending messages to ask if we can call, and apologizing if we take more than an hour to reply. But this would mean accepting without protest the new urban activity of dodging the crowds of bowed heads moving through the streets, phone in hand.

The other option, for those who can afford it, is to abandon the digital ship and retreat into an analog hermit life — perched atop the metaphorical mountain of a Nokia 3310, writing emails or, preferably, letters to our loved ones, criticizing the decay of the digital-fatigued communities around us and feeling pity for those gripped by the fear of missing out.

Whatever middle ground one chooses between these two extremes, it’s essential to lift the veil of technology’s invisibility. Even though new devices redefine how we connect, we still hold the power to decide what kind of communication norms we want to live by. This awareness not only benefits our social and psychological wellbeing.

Following the maxim that the personal is political, ping-pong communication also negatively affects democratic quality. Immediacy creates fertile ground for superficial and uncritical consumption of content, for infoxication, and for manipulation.

This gives bandwidth to phenomena like post-truth and disinformation, allowing polarizing discourse to spread freely. Against the ethics of leaving someone on read, we must reclaim slow-cooked, genuine, and thoughtful communication.

Original source of the material