Seen doesn’t mean summoned. You’re allowed to read it now and answer after dinner.

A read receipt has quietly become an obligation nobody agreed to. Knowing that you have seen something creates the sense of a clock running, and that pressure shapes your answer into something faster and thinner than what you would have sent an hour later. Reading and responding were never required to be one act.

Let yourself read things without answering immediately, and reply when you actually have the attention for it. If a delay would worry someone, send one line saying you will come back to it. Very little is genuinely lost in that gap.