We know that the computer age instills in us new reflexes that shape our attitudes and our relationships with others, but without us always being fully aware of them. Among the behavioral manifestations shaped by digital communications, the phenomenon of phantomization (ghosting) raises more and more questions in relation to the increase in passive or diverted expression of hostility or aggressiveness.
Anglicism ghoster appeared in everyday language during the last decade; it was included this year in the list of new words in the French language. It is a verb; we can therefore conjugate it: je ghostyou ghostsWe ghostons, I am ghosted… It evokes the action of breaking, of disappearing, of making disappear.
It’s a word-image (ghost — ghost), an asset that has perhaps favored the broadening of its use, in an era that values images and which easily moves between the real and the virtual, to the point of sometimes no longer making the difference between the two.
If, according to the dictionary definition, the term ghoster It is specifically about romantic relationships, it is not limited to them. It is increasingly used to talk about other types of relationships, whether family, professional or friendly.
Furthermore, there would be an important distinction to be made between forgetting and ghosting. Forgetting is involuntary, while ghoster rather refers to a voluntary action which would consist of putting into practice the avoidance of the person to whom we no longer want to speak or whom we no longer want to see, by acting as if they no longer existed for us, or by disinvesting the relationship in a more or less abrupt manner or which short-circuits any exchange.
We play dead or ghost (e.g. we don’t answer, we avoid all eye contact, we act as if we don’t know each other). It is an imposed silence, the manifestation of a closure to exchange, a door closed to any discussion that could provide explanations or give meaning to the break in connection or contact. We can ghoster without being aware of the impact of our action on the person who is ghosted. In fact, knowing or verifying whether this has an impact would not be part of the objective.
Security
An important clarification: It may prove legitimate and necessary to resort to the ghosting in certain circumstances that would require preserving one’s own safety when threatened by manifestations of psychological or physical violence. It would then be a protective strategy adapted to an exceptional situation that requires me to protect myself from a danger that threatens my life or my integrity. But what should we think of resorting to ghosting when this type of threat does not exist?
Objectively, the use of ghosting could represent a paradoxical communication strategy, since it consists of saving the energy required in a communication by producing non-responses. This then reduces or cancels the reciprocity that characterizes exchanges between human beings who take the time to exchange in order to explain themselves, understand each other, resolve a conflict, etc.
Save time and energy? The ghosting can certainly help avoid spending money, because a meeting or discussion requires a minimum of time, in addition to involving an expenditure of energy. In addition, agreeing to engage in an exchange involves a certain risk of questioning our perceptions or ideas, perhaps even of destabilization on an emotional level. Another potential advantage of using ghosting : we are comforted in our position or our opinion.
Dead end
On the side of the person who is doing it ghoster, a non-response would not represent a real answer, but rather an impasse. Will we then have to resolve to be ghosted to be able to move forward and stop suffering from waiting for an answer?
To get out of the dead end, we will then talk about letting go or real work of mourning to be done on the psychological and emotional levels, depending on the nature of the relationship which suffers the effects of the ghosting. Indeed, the feelings and emotional experiences generated by a non-response can be extremely painful to the point of fueling psychological distress and a feeling of worthlessness.
In the hope that a signal will emerge, whatever it may be, different emotions and thoughts can collide in a hellish chaos. It is like being in a cave without echoes, where the gaze and the voice fall flat. The wait for a “real” answer can become unbearable, because we can interpret the other person’s non-response in all sorts of ways. We will have to resist attributing intentions to them, because that would risk increasing our distress instead of soothing it. But giving up on understanding is not easy, because the human brain seeks to construct meaning, even meaningless things.
In a social context characterized by hyperconnection, would our ability to initiate dialogue in a relationship of reciprocity be affected, or even diminished? Dialogue implies a meeting, an exchange, between two people or two groups. It involves taking the time to meet the other, to listen, in a safe and respectful context (a ceasefire space). It is giving ourselves the chance to discover something new, unpredictable, which may perhaps disappoint us, shock us, but perhaps also enrich us and stimulate our creativity and resilience.
It can be very trying and confronting, but perhaps also something completely different that we could not have foreseen without taking the risk of dialogue or giving ourselves the chance. I work in a profession that relies on dialogue and I meet people who suffer greatly from being deprived of it or from no longer being able to benefit from its effects, which we know are positive for mental health. However, the word dialogue is still in the dictionary. Will this beautiful verb have to undergo a linguistic transformation through images to make it popular?