The Facebook "Seen" message gives me a lot of anxiety! When I see that the person has "seen" the message, but does not reply, I start thinking about all the possible reasons why they would 'ignore' me... Does anyone else feel this? If so, how do you cope?

This is a good question. I'm sure there are many people who wonder the same thing about the "seen" message on Facebook. From my personal perspective, it could mean anything. I just assume that the person has nothing else to say or maybe they stepped away from the computer, phone, tablet, whatever. There is one person that tries to talk to me and I will talk to her for a minute. She has thing about the phrase "I see", and that just irritates me because she says it all the time, so I don't respond. I'm just like you when it comes to the "seen" message, but that is what I do. Just let it go as they stepped away or something. I hope this helps.

You sound a lot like me. I'm the same. I think it comes from a tendency to overthink things and always resorting to the worst case scenario and making negative interpretations without actual evidence. What I try to do is think rationally and ask myself these questions - “What’s the evidence that this thought is true? Not true?” “What would I tell a friend who had this thought?” “Is there another way of looking at the situation or an alternate explanation?”. As long as I can think 'outside of my body' this tends to really help me calm myself down.

That's a very common feeling actually, the social media has made us less patient when it comes to human interactions and when we have to wait a little more, we start to imagine the worst case scenarios for ourselves. It's important to know that not everything is about us, even if it's happening to us, for example, that person who's not answering asap might have something more important and urgent to do at the moment, or he simply doesn't know how to reply that yet, or he's not feeling well and prefers to be alone with his own thoughts for a while. Others are not focused on us, as much as we think and that's okay, but it's not our fault whatsoever.

Yes it happens..when somebody has seen message but doesn't reply we are ought to get anxious...but we can cope with it by ruling out the possible facts...like he must be really busy ..or like he will respond when he gets time..he must not be in a situation to respond or he is not responding because of some possible reason...this will help to calm ourselves..this is the best way I dealt with it..and make up your mind that if he doesn't respond it's ok I will not unnecessarily get tensed or nervous. And not replying to messages don't mean always that they are ignoring you that is the point you need to understand..hope it helps

You are not alone when it comes to that situation. There are different ways to cope with it but it also depends on how you yourself cope with it. Example, my friend and I were talking and all of a sudden she left me on seen. Now, I know that there are many reasons why she could have left me on seen, she may be busy and forgot to tell me or she may have lost signal. Both which can be very possible. Try asking the person the next time around if he or she leaves you on seen. Ask them open end questions that would get you answers. If they still leave you on seen, even after the questions, there is a possibility they may not be interested. But that is not your fault. Now for the coping, first of all, remember its not your fault. Second, take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Third, do something else that you enjoy and take the thought out of your mind. Do this each time, and see the difference. I hope this helps.

I feel this a lot! My best friend leaves me on "seen" a lot and it makes me anxious and lowers my self confidence. It depends on what you've sent and who you have sent it to. I have had to learn that, if I send a funny meme to my best friend he might not respond because he doesn't see a reason to. If you have asked a question then that implies a needed response, it is possible that the person saw your message and simply forgot to respond when they had time later, I know I've done that. A "reponse-worthy message" is different to every individual. I respond when someone sends me something to acknowledge to them that I received it but someone else might think that a meme is worthy of starting a conversation. Don't think too much of it, if those people really didn't care about you or want to talk to you then they would go out of their way to make sure they didn't have to. It is a hard thing to grasp but social media and messages don't give you any worth, what matters is your relationship with them. :)

This is actually a very common thing, feeling anxious when people see but don't reply to your messages. Some apps allow you to turn off the "seen" messages, or you can ask the other person to so that you don't have to deal with it. If not, it sometimes helps me to think of the innocuous reasons why I personally don't always respond to messages- I'm busy at the moment, got distracted and forgot, I don't know where to take the conversation, or I plan on returning to the conversation later. These reasons apply to other people as often as they do to you, and it's very rare that it's actually because they don't like you

I feel like this all the time! Sometimes it can make me really anxious, especially if it's an important message or a question that I was already anxious to ask about in the first place. When this happens, the first thing I try to be is realistic. Chances are, they saw the message and got distracted by something else and forgot to respond. I honestly can't name the amount of times I've done that to someone else! If they don't respond in a while, I'll send them a reminder text, something like "Hey, just following up on the message I sent earlier" and then whatever it was. It's really important to not let your mind take your theories and jump with them. As soon as you start overthinking, the situation gets a whole lot more stressful.

I had the same problem with WhatsApp some years ago. I don't know about Facebook but maybe you can turn this notification off. If this is not the case or does not help, what I did was the following: I thought about myself and the reasons I might have to not reply right away. All the reasons I could think of were stuff like: I have to eat something, I am taking a break from social media, I have to study, I am taking a bath, or: I want to take time to reply because this person is important to me and at the moment, I do not have enough time. Doing this helped me realise over time, that there really is no reason to worry and with some self-confidence: even if the person wanted to ignore me or had a problem with me, as long as they were not open with me about it or addressed it, it was their problem and their responsibility. I did nothing wrong. When I did, they need to tell me so I can then reflect on myself. But I realised that it was not healthy to reflect on potential mistakes I possibly have made, without really knowing anything for certain. So, this is just my experience, but I really hope that sharing it can help you in some way. Wish you all the best!

I am dealing wirhth the same thing on another social media platforms. I feel irrelevant like people don't respect me. But then I think; sometimes I am online there because it is some emergency thing and mistakenly I 'see' other messages too but cannot answer. Or just when I am about to answer, someone calls me or mom takes my phone :p . So again, mistakenly I 'see' the messages. I don't want to make nervous anyone, including me so I hide all the "seen" stuff. But if I realise that they are doing this on purpose, then I honestly ask them.