Have You Been ‘Mooning’ Your Friends?

Alright, alright, put your pants back on. We don’t mean that kind of mooning.

Mooning has NOTHING to do with getting your arse out anymore. It’s taken on a whole new meaning thanks to the iPhone Generation.

‘Mooning’ someone (or indeed a group of people) refers to the action of silencing a chat or a group chat by putting it on Do Not Disturb mode. When you mute a chat, a moon appears next to the text thread.

On an iPhone, mooning someone is easy enough: All you have to do is press the “i” icon at the top right of the text message thread, toggle “Do Not Disturb” to the right, and then you won’t receive notifications for their messages until you turn it off. 

On Facebook Messenger, if you click the person’s name or the name of the group chat, you can toggle the chat’s notification settings. 

Don’t worry – your messages ain’t going anywhere. The messages will still be there, but they won’t cause your phone to light up every two seconds, which can be annoying during a meeting or when you’re trying to fall asleep.

“It’s easier for us to moon people than to block them. Blocking feels more aggressive — you don’t want to block your mother,” says Diane Gottsman, national etiquette expert and owner of The Protocol School of Texas. 

It’s understandable why you’d moon someone if, for instance, you were going to bed. But, depending on who you choose to moon, you could end up missing out on some important messages – be careful!

To moon or not to moon – that is the question.

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