INTRODUCTION
In the new digital era of relationship-building, we start with a swipe, then wait in silence, and often end things in silence as well. What used to begin over a cup of coffee now takes place on a palm-sized screen. Dating apps have played an important role in changing the grammar of intimacy, for instance, instant attraction, instant tweeting, and, just as simply, instant disappearing.[1]
With convenience comes a new emotional lexicon of relationships: ghosting and breadcrumbing.
- Ghosting: is when someone suddenly disappears from someone else’s life, no explanation, no closure, just a digital vanishing act.
- Breadcrumbing: it involves communicating, through texts, emojis, or flirty comments, small, infrequent crumbs to imply interest, while not really having any interest in a relationship. It is equally painful.
These may seem like trivial social blunders in the chaotic modern realm of sexual and romantic relationships. However, the emotional toll for many is anything but trivial. Ghosting and breadcrumb victims often speak about feeling rejected, confused, and/or loss – or the collective, diagnosed symptoms that psychologists suggest mirror the pain of grief.
A 2021 study led by researchers at the University of Georgia found that people who had experienced ghosting reported feeling social pain and having more rejection sensitivity (as part of their distress) that was comparable to experiences of physically lost relationships.[2] Perhaps what is even more ‘fascinating’ is how commonplace such occurrences have come to be. Ghosting is more than an isolated disappointment; it has become part of a larger cultural shift that is taking place in society, which is diminishing interpersonal formats of human presence for types of technological convenience. We have figured out that technology not only connects us but can hurt us.
But the law is not responsive to this. Emotional harms, as a result of ghosting, breadcrumbing, or disconnection, do not fit neatly under the rubric of what the law has categorised as harassment or defamation. So, it is now a question not only of morality, but a question of legality, and whether these forms of digital disconnection should continue to remain socially unacceptable or reach a threshold of legal harm.
DOCTRINAL GAPS IN CURRENT LAW
1. India: Acts, Not Omissions
Indian criminal law, through the IPC (1860), and now BNS (2023), defines offences through acts (for example, there is no “omission” in law, or “emotional neglect”, both of which are relevant here). The legal system punishes what you do, but it does not punish what you do not do.
- Stalking (s 354D IPC / s 79 BNS): Relates to physical stalking, which is the repeated unwanted “contact”; ghosting has none of these elements, while breadcrumbing has a very limited threshold.
- Criminal Intimidation (s 503 IPC / s 351 BNS): Relates to the existence of threats or fear (neither is present).
- Insulting Modesty (s 509 IPC / s 78(2) BNS): This offence is limited to having acted sexually.
- Cheating (s 415 IPC / s 318 BNS): Relates to a financial loss being involved, but the emotional deceit alone is not a sufficient level of cheating.[3]
In Vineet Kumar v State of UP[4], the Court said harassment requires “repetition”, and intrusion, not silence. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 recognises emotional abuse as being in an existing marriage or relationship, blended family, or living together relationship.[5]
Ghosting and breadcrumbing cause real emotional harm; however, they are outside of India’s act-based laws. It is a recognition of contact being harmed, but not a lack of contact to be an act of harm.
2. UK Law: Harassment And Coercive Control
The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 prohibits a “course of conduct” that causes alarm or distress.[6]. In Majrowski v. Guy’s and St. Thomas’s NHS Trust, the House of Lords decided that harassment requires a series of repeated acts, also known as oppressive acts. The silence of ghosting is too passive.[7]. With the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, we now have “coercive control,” including manipulation or psychological domination, that is also within intimate relationships.[8]. But the inconsistency of breadcrumbing, as opposed to domination, falls outside of the Act.
3. United States: Tort Law And Emotional Distress
In the United States, civil torts are applicable, specifically the tort called Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED), which is derived from the case of Wilkinson v. Downton, and adopted in the Restatement of Torts section 46 (1965).[9] In order for the conduct to be actionable, it has to be extreme and outrageous and cause the distress to be severe.
In Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, the Supreme Court reiterated that not every insult or unkind act qualifies; the conduct must “go beyond all bounds of decency.”[10] While ghosting may cause distress to the victim, no matter how harshly psychological damage was inflicted, the conduct does not meet the threshold of conduct severity.
However, jurisdictions on the state level have recognised emotional distress through electronic mediums in enforcing laws on cyber harassment, which may be indicative of how the law adapts to emotional distress claims by recognising harm in electronic communication.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS: REFORMING THE DIGITAL DUTY OF CARE
Legal changes must be careful to strike a balance between criminalising behaviour and recognising emotional experiences. Punishing a broken heart risks being too harsh, while ignoring emotional harm causes continuing harm.
- Define “digital emotional abuse.”
It is important to create a narrow offence or civil wrong for intentional manipulation of emotional harm through digital means. When one party intentionally creates emotional disturbance using deception, crumb-brushing, or gaslighting. This could reflect the UK “coercive control” model, with strict evidential thresholds.
- Introduce Civil Liability For Emotional Harm
Create a limited civil remedy closely resembling IIED but specific to online relationships. Liability should be imposed only in cases of severe, intentional, and provable harm based upon communication logs.
- Introduce Current Harassment Frameworks
Amend cyber harassment laws to address relational exploitation, when digital input results in proven mental harm that does not involve bodily contact.
- Promote Proactive Ethical Digital Practices
Designate dating apps to develop and include emotional health provisions in policies as created under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021[11]Imposing a duty to address manipulative behaviours.
- Restorative Justice Options
In place of punitive responses, offer mediation and counselling for emotional falls from breakdowns in digital communications, primarily between and about adolescents and young adults.
CONCLUSION: WHEN SILENCE BECOMES A SOCIAL HARM
Ghosting and breadcrumbing exemplify the social evolution of emotional harm from private heartbreak to a social phenomenon. Such developments demonstrate a gap in the law’s moral imagination and incapacity to envision silence as harm within a hyperconnected world. While there is currently no jurisdiction that categorically criminalises these behaviours, courts are increasingly understanding, via the tort of economic duress and intentional infliction of emotional distress, that mental dignity belongs in the constellation of constitutional and human rights. The Indian Supreme Court described the concept of privacy in Puttaswamy (2017)[12] as extending to “the preservation of personal intimacies, the sanctity of family life, and the protection of mental integrity.”
As our personal relationships expand into digital spaces, this definition of privacy must also expand to include emotional autonomy, or an affirmative right to not be manipulated, misled, or emotionally erased. The pathway forward is not to criminalise heartbreak, but instead to humanise technology; to allow law to consider the quiet cruelties taking place within a silence of being, because in a world of messages, sometimes, the depraved silence can be greater than in the actual message, because it is actually the absence of a message.
Author(s) Name: Rudrali Deshpande (New Law College, BVDU, Pune)
References:
[1] C Bandinelli, ‘Dating apps: Towards Post-Romantic Love in Digital Societies’ (2022) 16 International Journal of Cultural Policy 764
[2] C M Leckfor, N R Wood, R B Slatcher and A H Hales, ‘From Close to Ghost: Examining the Relationship Between the Need for Closure, Intentions to Ghost, and Reactions to Being Ghosted’ (2023) 40(8) Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 2422–2444 <https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075221149955> accessed 18 November 2025
[3] The Indian Penal Code 1860, ss 354D, 415, 503, 509
[4] Vineet Kumar & Ors v State of Uttar Pradesh (2017) 6 SCR 922 (SC).
[5] The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005
[6] Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
[7] Majrowski v Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Trust [2006] UKHL 34, [2007] 1 AC 224 (HL).
[8] Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
[9] Wilkinson v Downton [1897] 2 QB 57 (Eng).
[10] Hustler Magazine Inc v Falwell 485 US 46 (1988).
[11] Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021
[12] Justice K S Puttaswamy (Retd) v Union of India (2017) 10 SCC 1.
