09/18/2025

Why Friends Don’t Always Text Back

Here's why you might struggle to respond to texts, too

Sometimes, texting back can feel like a task too big to tackle, even when it comes to friends we value and conversations we genuinely want to have. As it turns out, not texting back is a relatively commonplace phenomenon: According to the World Economic Forum, 31 percent of people experience daily stress related to texting. Nearly 1 in 5 struggle to keep up with replies, and almost 1 in 6 admit to ignoring all messages because they receive so many.

So, why is it so hard to text back?

1. Cognitive and Emotional Overload

We live in a busy world: Juggling work, family and life means our cognitive and emotional capacity is constantly stretched. Especially for those working in professions such as teaching, social work, clinical care or even people management, emotional labor—the act of managing both our own and others’ feelings and expressions as part of a professional role—requires significant psychological energy. Compounding this is decision fatigue, a concept described by Baumeister et al. (1998), which refers to the mental exhaustion that accumulates after making decisions all day.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Psychology Today.