Is it rude not to answer a Facebook message or a text in a timely fashion?

[494]

I've had times when I've received a text message or a Facebook message simply saying, "what's new with you?" Or "how are you?". If I'm not in the mood to talk to the person or it's not important, I might answer it with a few hours or the following day. Would this be considered rude?

[Lili]

No.

People have become too demanding and unrealistic regarding responses, owing to the swiftness that modern technology allows. It's one thing if you are dealing with a work or other situation in which a timely response may be crucial, but a casual "What's new?" or "How are you?" does NOT demand a rapid response. It is not rude to wait a while to respond.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is suffering from the arrogant self-absorption and self-aggrandizement that sites like Facebook have encouraged.

[Bec]

Depends - think about it from their point of view. They see you have "seen" the message and you choose to ignore it. But then if you spend the next 3 hours posting and liking pictures, you can see why they think it rude. Because you clearly aren't too busy to deal with it.
If you "see" it and then are rushing out to work just reply when you can - people still have lives outside of technology. I do agree that people seem to have this need to be replied to straight away because of technology and can be hurt when they are "ignored".
I had a friend who would ignore my messages for days on end - we would chat a lot over facebook and she would reply 3 times and then just stop for 5 days but continue posting things all over facebook - then come back with a "hey, sorry I went out" went out for 5 days? Doubt it. More likely got distracted and forgot to reply. Once or twice = mistake. Every week? - I just stopped replying to her and got a "omg it's been ages!" - it was 5 days -same time she made me wait for answers - to me that is rude.

So generally it's not rude. I've done it when someone has posted "hey how are you?" - I was going out later that evening, they were currently online so I just read it and then logged out. I didn't want to get into a conversation right then but didn't want to be posting things and ignoring them. I replied later that evening with "sorry, I was going out earlier" type of thing

[Pearl L]

no, theyre the ones bothering you when you dont want to be bothered, i hate it when people email me constantly when i dont want to be bothered