For a decade, my wife’s read receipts have been on without her knowing it. She kept checking her phone’s settings to see if they were turned off, and they were. But every time I sent her a text, I’d see that my message got delivered, and what time she read it. Suffice it to say, this led to some awkward moments.

Read receipts are a sore spot for a lot of couples, friends, family members, employers — really anyone who sends and receives text messages these days. It wasn’t always like this. Just a few years ago, you could send a text and not expect the unwelcome and day-ruining reminder that the recipient had read but failed to respond to your message.

But these days, bad manners isn’t the only reason why read receipts are bad. They can be an invitation for scammers to target you. And while you can turn them off on iOS and Android’s default messaging apps, you might even consider using an entirely different app for your day-to-day texting needs that allow you even more privacy protections.

Seriously, though, stop using read receipts — on any of your messaging apps. Turn them off. There is little upside to giving away this tiny clue about how you’re spending your time and attention. There is plenty of upside to reverting to a more primitive form of communication where you send a text and have no idea what happens to it next. You might even find solace in not knowing if the message was read. Maybe it just got lost in cyberspace, and maybe you should move on with your day rather than fretting.

It wasn’t that long ago that this is how texting worked. The first text message was sent using SMS, or short message service, technology in 1992 — it said “Merry Christmas.” Ten years later, we got MMS, or multimedia messaging service, which worked like SMS but with images, video, and audio files.

Just a few years ago, you could send a text and not expect the unwelcome and day-ruining reminder that the recipient had read but failed to respond to your message.

Although a similar feature existed on email, BlackBerry gets credit for the

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