Being excluded from a group chat actually registers in your brain as physical, bodily injury.

A closer look

Being excluded from a group chat actually registers in your brain as physical, bodily injury. Neurological studies on social ostracism reveal that being ignored or rejected by peers activates the exact same neural pathways in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex that are responsible for processing physical pain. Millions of years ago, getting kicked out of your hunter-gatherer tribe meant you were absolutely going to be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, so our brains evolved to treat social rejection as a literal death sentence. This is why getting ghosted after a mediocre first date genuinely hurts your chest and makes you feel like you just took a baseball bat to the ribs. It is profoundly embarrassing to realize that our highly sophisticated modern emotions are still entirely governed by the survival mechanisms of cavemen terrified of wandering the tundra alone!