How long is considered rude to respond to a text?

[vegasinthesky]

I tend to reply in 48 hours.

A friend took 2 weeks to respond to my message when she responded in a separate group chat we’re in and was posting on Instagram in those two weeks. I think that’s pretty inconsiderate.

Probably by the next day, but depends on a lot of things. What's happening, subject etc. Sometimes, if I see a text and can't reply straight away, I forget as the text then gets buried. Maybe that happened to your friend.

I think it depends on context.

At one end of the spectrum, if it's a question that needs an answer ("are you free for lunch tomorrow?") then ideally the recipient should respond as soon as they see it. Would be rude to leave someone on read.

At the other end, I have a few friends in other countries where we use text more like a letter - I don't reply until I have a nice chunk of time to respond properly, and they do the same. So could be days or even weeks if its just general chit chat and not something significant that needs acknowledgement.

I’d say 24-48 hours unless there are special circumstances.

I think you should respond within 48 hours (unless clearly on holiday/ similar). Even if the message is just an acknowledgement that you have received the message.

I aim to respond within 24 hours. I do sometimes just forget to respond to things though, which I feel really guilty about if it's been more than a day.

And yes it is very rude to respond to group chats but not personal messages. If that happens to me I assume I'm being ignored/avoided.

I try and reply the same day, or the next morning if I receive a text late at night.

For me 48 hours is a long time but it depends on the context and whether it's a question or just general chat.

Depends on the text. My mum complains all the time that we take ages to reply to her but it's just time consuming nonsense that if she was saying in a phonecall I could say I was busy and get out of the conversation but with texts you have a never ending obligation to reply apparently.

I generally respond same day, if I haven't it's because I needed to think about the response and because the notification is no longer there I've forgotten.

If others don't respond to me within a day or two, I'd send a reminder rather than assume I'm being ignored.

Completely depends on the text. I hate the idea that we all have to rely to things pdq on receipt and then they have to reply pdq back to us, on and on. Surely the joy of texts is that you can reply in your own time?

I have 'respond to texts' on my to do lost for today, I've got some I haven't replied to for weeks and weeks because I know they will text back and then I'm at square one. Today I shall eat the frog however.

Reply when and if you like. There's no 'rude' for a text. They exist to wait.

I don't think it's a big deal to respond 2 weeks later. At least they got around to it in the end.
I hate the feeling that you always have to message back people everyday. People are busy or CBA. It's not personal.

I reply when I feel like it, there's no time frame unless it's an emergency obviously.
End of the day these people are people, they have their own life's. You shouldn't "demand" someone's time like that.
Some people struggle knowing what to reply, some people are busy with work and family, some people rarely pick up their phones etc.

Also if your in a group chat with her... surely you can talk to her on that?

I think it's unfair and just not accurate to say it's inconsiderate. It could be inconsiderate but it could be lots of other things like...

They forgot, they don't know how to respond, they thought they replied, they are purposefully not prioritising it because they don't like you 😂

It depends on the text. There's not a one rule fits all. A short text is easy to reply to even when you're busy. A paragraph even if it's trivial takes some time.
If it's an important text I'll try to reply within the same day. General chat is another story.

No hard & fast rules.

Depends who & what.

I think max 24 hours. It takes two seconds to respond.

I am that friend 🤣🤣

I always respond as soon as I'm free. Rude to see it and not reply

Surely most text responses are yes/no/OK/will do/thank you/7pm on Fri?

What kind of conversations are you having by text that means time needs to be set aside to reply?

It depends on what is happening in her life, what the text was about, how much thought the answer required, whether there was something specific involved that meant a delay.
For something social but not urgent , I might take a week.

I’d try and respond within 24 hours to a short message which only needed a short reply but depending on how busy it could be a bit longer, but probably within a couple of days. If it’s a longer message where I need to write a considered reply over several paragraphs it might take longer for me to find the time to reply, maybe a few days but usually within a week.

That said it’s easy to forget about messages, if I open a message at work or in another situation where I’m busy and can’t reply I would intend to reply later when free but sometimes I just completely forget. Messages are kind of out of sight out of mind for me a lot of the time so without the unread notification I just forget about it. Or sometimes I will keep remembering I need to reply when I’m not free to do so and so I don’t manage to reply and it can start to feel like I’ve left it too long too reply and end up ignoring the message out of anxiety around whether I’ve been rude, even though I also know it’s rude not to reply at all somehow it feels easier than replying after too much time has passed. I also sometimes start to reply and then get distracted part way through and don’t end up actually sending anything or will have written a reply in my head and will then think I did reply when actually I didn’t!

If it’s just one message she hasn’t replied to I would give the benefit of the doubt that she isn’t being intentionally rude and has just forgotten about the message you sent, maybe try sending her another message to bump yourself back to the top of her inbox.

It's been a month and now I'm convinced my 'friend' doesn't want to know me anymore.

I have friends living all over the country who I only see once or twice a year and almost all of our social communication outside of when we actually manage to meet up is by messaging each other on Whatsapp etc. We message to talk and catch up about work, family, holidays, things to celebrate or things that are making us anxious etc and messages can be over many paragraphs, more like emails than texts. I have far more people who I message like this than I do people I would text only wanting a ‘yes/ no’ type reply.