No contact

No contact is the practice of deliberately cutting off communication with someone, most often an ex-partner or a family member. It usually means not calling, texting, checking their social media or replying to them for a set period or permanently.

The longer explanation

After a breakup, people use no contact to stop the cycle of hope and disappointment, to grieve, and to break habits like checking an ex's stories. Wikipedia notes it's especially recommended where a relationship was abusive. A large slice of online content instead frames no contact as a tactic to make an ex miss you and come back. That's a different goal, and it tends to keep you focused on them.

Formal research on breakup no contact as an intervention is thin. Most guidance is clinical experience and self-help.

Example

You mute or block their accounts, archive the chat, ask friends not to pass on updates, and decide in advance what you'll do when you're tempted at 1 a.m.

What it is not

It isn't ghosting someone you're still dating, and it isn't a punishment or a strategy to win someone back.

Online use vs research use

Online "no contact rule" content often promises an ex will return after 30 days. There's no good evidence for that promise.

Blocked in real life. Healing in high definition.