It’s part of our lives now. Whether you are using your mum’s phone, your elder sibling’s or your own, you post something on a social networking app and just can’t wait to see who saw it, who liked it and how many people have watched it. It’s not even 30 seconds, and you take your phone out thrice to check if someone has viewed your story or not. Strangely enough, it is not because you’re bored or you’re nosy. It’s just something inside you wanting some acknowledgment.

And just when you see a blue dot on the app, you scroll the names, close it and somehow open it again ten minutes later to check the viewer count if it has increased. It didn’t. But you checked anyway.

So why has this behaviour become so common? Why does it matter so much who is on the list, and who isn’t? How has something as small as a little eye icon or blue dot changed the way we post, read and watch each other online? Why has a simple list of names become something we keep checking?

A scoreboard

This feature, giving you a small piece of information about who saw your story, leaves you to figure out everything else. You know who watched first, who watched last, who watched but didn’t react, didn’t reply, didn’t even leave an emoji. Suddenly, all these little details start feeling important.

So if your best friend takes six hours to react or reply, you start building a whole case file in your head. Are they busy? Why did they ignore me? Etc. You keep thinking through never-ending scenarios because your brain wants an answer, and it doesn’t want to leave things without closure once you’ve opened them up in your head.

Seen but ignored

This feeling hurts a lot, even though nothing actually happened- no fight, no argument—yet it feels like being ignored on purpose, in public, with a receipt.

Sadly, the feature that was built to give you information is also serving another purpose — the reasons to feel happy, disappointed or upset. As a result, viewer lists turn into evidence and then into arguments in group chats. “She watched my story two seconds after I posted it, but she didn’t even ask how I was doing.” Watching someone’s story starts to feel like a kind of confession. You can’t pretend you weren’t there.

Live performance!

Ask yourself honestly: you don’t just check who watched. You post for them too. Knowing there are people who will watch can change what you post in the first place. You are sharing a moment with everyone. Maybe you post the concert photo hoping your old friend sees it and feels a little jealous. This and a lot of such stories you cook up while posting.

Once you know who your audience is, you start performing for them, whether you mean to or not. And the funny thing is, the audience might be 200 people, but you’re often thinking about only two or three of them.

You want to score too!

Sometimes it is not just who has watched it; it is actually how many have watched it.

You post something and get 40 views. Then your friend posts something and gets 150. Suddenly you start wondering why. Was their post better? More interesting?

It sounds silly, but numbers make us compare ourselves without even meaning to. A post that was supposed to be just an informative piece, a picture or a joke suddenly feels like a small test of how much attention you get.

My friends, there isn’t any test or scoring going on. Forty views don’t mean you’re less interesting or less liked than someone who got 150. Everyone has different opinions, different friends, different interests and different reasons for tapping that little heart or leaving a comment. Those numbers are not a measurement of you.

Apps built for a purpose

Once you post anything on the social media app, you check within moments for who has viewed it. This urge to check never stops; you are curious, overjoyed and just inquisitive to check repeatedly and find out everyone- the people you know and the people you don’t know.

All these features on the apps give you a reason to come back. Every time you post, there is something you don’t know yet: who saw it, who liked it, who replied. The app gives you just a little information to make you curious about what might have changed. And when you come back to check, you are spending more time on the platform. And the more often you come back, the more time you spend on the platform. That gives the app more chances to show you ads, recommend content and learn what keeps you engaged.

Don’t overthink it

Checking who responded to your post isn’t really the problem. The problem starts when you give the list more meaning than it actually has. Those who respond and those who don’t, all have their own day going on. They might have seen your story while rushing somewhere, forgotten to reply, or simply not known what to say. Not every silence has a hidden meaning.

So when you post something and feel the urge to check who viewed or who commented, just stop, ask yourself what you are actually looking for. Reassurance? Attention? Proof someone cares? Or maybe just curiosity?

There is nothing wrong with checking. Just don’t let a little eye icon tell you a whole story about your relationships.

Published in Dawn, Young World, September 19th, 2026