The epidemic of constant communication

When connection becomes an obligation

I went to my first college party in September 2023–an apartment crowded with bodies and laughter, the air thick with the faint smell of sweet perfume and sweat. There was a table of Jell-O shots, vodka, and mixers. Music throbbed through the walls, bass-heavy, a blend of 2010s nostalgia and rap songs that made the floor rumble. My roommate and I sank into the couch, singing “Party in the USA” at the top of our lungs, barely audible over the roar of conversation. We played pong with strangers and flung our arms around people we’d never met before. We drank, we talked, we laughed, we sang, we danced, and crossed an invisible threshold: our first real night out. So adult.

When we finally stumbled back to the dorm, I called my long-distance boyfriend, my voice thick with exhaustion and alcohol. “I missed you a lot,” I murmured, meaning it, feeling it throbbing in my heart.

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said, his voice sharper than I expected. Drunkenly, I laughed at the absurdity of it all. “Yeah, right.” Wasn’t it obvious?

“You say you missed me, but you didn’t text me once.”

I frowned. “I’m calling you now. I got swept into conversation. I forgot I even had a phone. Can’t you understand that?”

“So you couldn’t send me one text?” he pressed, unrelenting.

We went back and forth, retreating into our own hurt, not understanding each other. He saw silence as neglect, while I couldn’t grasp the relation between the two. That night ended with hot tears streaming down my face, swallowed sobs muffled in my pillow. I didn’t want my roommate to wake up. I didn’t want her to know. I didn’t want her pity.

Even now, I wonder how many people I’ve missed without telling them. How many times have I let a moment pass without reaching for someone, without saying the thing that aches to be said? And yet, is it not enough to simply hold someone in your mind, to let missing them be an internal thing, quiet and private?

The modern world has made connection effortless, especially instantaneously. After all, everyone is easily accessible nowadays. Everyone’s a call, text, or email away. Is there ever an excuse to not tell someone you love them the second you feel it? With the ever-evolving connection of today comes an unspoken demand–a pressure to always be available, to always respond. There’s a sense of entitlement to constant communication. Even when you can’t talk, the expectation is that you voice it. And if you don’t, what does that mean? That you don’t care? That you don’t love them enough? I reject that notion.

Many of my friends, tethered to their relationships, sigh at the sight of another text notification from their boyfriend. “He just won’t stop texting me,” they’ll say, rolling their eyes before promptly during their phone off. What starts as sweet concern gradually morphs into something heavier–a quiet resentment, born from the weight of constant communication. Does love demand an unbroken thread of check-ins? Must we always know where our person is, how fast they’re driving, the exact percentage of their phone battery? My answer is a firm: no.

Not every relationship needs the steady drip of updates, the play-by-play of each passing hour. Some thrive on it. Others suffocate. After time alone, I’ve come to love my independence, to cherish the silence between messages, the space to exist without explanation.

And yet, somewhere beyond my carefully guarded solitude–I know my walls are not unbreakable. With the right person, I’d want to see what dishes they’re cooking and hear the songs they’re playing on repeat. But real love should never feel like surveillance. It should be the kind of knowing that doesn’t require proof. The kind of presence that doesn’t demand constant validation. I want to live my life and I want them to live theirs. But never in a way that makes me feel like I’m losing myself.

Somewhere along the way, anxious attachment crept into the fabric of modern relationships, clawing its way to the forefront of people’s minds. The need for constant validation–proof of love in the form of texts, check-ins, and uninterrupted attention–has become an expectation rather than an exception. Because if they’re not responding right away, if they’re not reaching out first, if they’re not offering reassurance on demand, then do they even love you?

It seems as though people have forgotten that relationships are meant to enrich our lives, not consume them. Love should be something that strengthens you, not something that makes you feel like a shell of yourself, hollowed by the weight of someone else’s expectations. Instead of allowing love to be a space of trust, it has, for many, become a performance–a constant proving, a fear of falling short.

We are living in an epidemic of constant communication. Love, once measured by presence and understanding, is now quantified by response times and message frequency. Love shouldn’t be a quiet battle over who cares more. It should be felt in the spaces between words, in the trust that lingers even in silence–even miles apart. The right person won’t demand proof of love; they’ll know it’s there–unspoken but unwavering.

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