In 2017, Merriam-Webster Dictionary added the term “ghosting” along with a slew of other millennial-age terms such as “throwing shade” and “microaggressions.” Defining it as “to cut off all contact with (someone) abruptly and unusually without explanation,” this definition came during a time when the rise of dating apps and technological identities had cemented themselves in the lives of people, creating this new phenomenon of “ghosting” that seemingly started to arise as an unavoidable experience in the world of technological dating. We have all experienced or practiced ghosting when it comes to our romantic endeavors over the internet, however, this phenomenon translates to different types of relationships we have as well. Ghosting between friendships is a widely unstudied phenomenon that has been generalized with romantic ghosting for years, yet the differences in these practices have ultimately questioned researchers into finding out if there is truly a difference between romantic and platonic ghosting.
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When it comes to general ghosting practices, about a third of Americans have ghosted someone else as well as have been ghosted themselves. This is seemingly due to the fact that the digital age has provided an environment where people are constantly connected to others; 84% of emerging adults use at least one social media site. These factors contribute to a change in online communication where individuals expect immediate responses, and a lack of response creates emotional distress.
Previous research has been conducted to study the consequences and mental effects of ghosting, however much of it has focused on people who have been ghosted and has been limited to ghosting in relation to romantic relationships. One study in the Journal of Telematics and Informatics aimed to change the direction of where this research is going, and researched the different consequences of ghosting somebody between romantic relationships and friendships within emerging adults (16-21 years old). In a two-wave survey, they measured whether an individual has ghosted somebody and if it was in the context of a romantic relationship or a platonic relationship as well as measured levels of these predictors: communication overload, self-esteem, and depressive tendencies. Communication overload is defined as “an excess of communicative demands on social media that transcends individuals’ communicative abilities”; In short, receiving too many messages to mentally handle. Self-esteem was presented in two ways; high self-esteem may indicate that ghosting is used to “exercise control” over a relationship as well as portray self-forgiveness, while low self-esteem may be an indication of insecurity and avoiding confrontation that can result in ghosting. Finally, depressive tendencies were measured for individuals with these tendencies “tend to engage in avoidance strategies such as rumination”, which can lead to ghosting. Control variables including age, gender, and education level were also introduced. In analyzing the results of the survey data, here is a table of correlations that the study found between the type of ghosting and the predictors as well as the control variables:
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The study found that in ghosting between romantic partners, communication overload is a significant predictor, however it is not significant in friendships. Older individuals were also more likely to ghost others within romantic relationships, and individuals with a higher education were less likely to ghost within romantic relationships. Between friendships, self esteem and depressive tendencies were significant predictors, in contrast to romantic relationships where they are not. Overall, ghosting friends means you are more likely to have a lower self-esteem as well as exhibit higher depressive tendencies, whereas you are more likely to experience communication overload when you ghost a romantic partner.
There exist many possible reasons as to why ghosting friends is due to different predictors than if you are to ghost a romantic partner. When speaking with one of the authors of the above study Ela Forrai, a researcher at the University of Vienna that focuses on media psychology and health communication, she brought up many points that could contribute as to why these phenomenons are different. Firstly, and simply, we have far more friends in our social sphere than we have romantic partners in our lives. This increases our chances of ghosting friendships rather than romantic partners, and if we do practice romantic ghosting it may be seen as a far more dramatic event that is not predicted by our states of self-esteem and depression. She also brought up an interesting psychological phenomenon in which studies have shown that we tend to underestimate the benefits of our social relationships which can be beneficial to our well being and lead to an increase in feelings of belonging and happiness, and when we ghost people we do not realize that we are missing out on these advantages and benefits that these social interactions could bring to us. The ending of these relationships can increase depressive tendencies and lower self-esteem, which predict ghosting between friendships in this study. Ela also mentioned another phenomenon in which young people have shown to select friends who have a similar level of depressive tendencies as they do, and it has been shown that the depressive tendencies that those friends exhibit can actually contribute to an increase in one’s own depressive tendencies later on. This can explain why depressive tendencies are a significant predictor in ghosting between friendships; if young people choose their friends based on their own similar mental health, the relationship may more likely end up being ended over ghosting on both sides.

This phenomenon can be related to another study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships that studied the relationship between need for closure as well as the intention (tendency) to ghost somebody. As defined in the study, “a need for closure is a person’s desire to avoid ambiguity and to have a firm answer.” Higher needs for closure have been associated with “lower trust levels in strangers” and a “lower level of empathy with dissimilar others”, which relates to the lower lack of relatedness to others that individuals with depressive tendencies exhibit as mentioned in the previously analyzed study. These researchers measured the need for closure as well as the tendency to ghost within romantic relationships and platonic relationships through questions that were rated one through seven, and this is visualized in the following graphs:
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The graphs show that a higher need for closure is associated with an increase in intention to ghost in both romantic relationships and friendships. Individuals were more likely to exhibit a higher intention to ghost within friendships, however the correlation between need for closure and intention was similar between romantic relationships and friendships. This showcases the phenomenon that an increase in depressive tendencies may contribute to ghosting.
Ghosting others is never an enjoyable experience to go through, however psychological and environmental factors may be predictors as to why we engage in these practices that can damage both ourselves and others. Our friendships and relationships exist as important aspects of our lives, and the way we go about existing in these relationships says a lot about the way that we go about our individual lives whether it is on online or in real life. The next time you catch yourself in the process of ghosting either a friendship or a romantic partner, think about what could be fueling your willingness to engage in this behavior and how it reflects your personal and inner state.
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