People often have things they want to say but hold back in conversations, fearing vulnerability or social consequences. Online, this restraint can take a distinctive form: even when such thoughts are written out - in moments of anger, guilt, or longing - people may choose to withhold them, leaving them unsent. This process is underexamined; we investigate the experience of writing such messages within people's digital communications. We find that unsent messages become expressive containers for suppressed feelings, where the act of writing creates a pause for reflection on the relationship and oneself. Building on these insights, we probe into how the design of the writing platforms of unsent messages affects people's experiences and motivations. Speculating with participants on nine evocative variants of a note-taking platform, we highlight how design shapes the emotional, temporal, and ritualistic qualities of unsent messages, revealing subtle tensions between people's social desires and communicative actions.

翻译：人们常常在对话中有所保留，因担心脆弱性或社会后果而克制表达。在网络环境中，这种克制呈现出独特形态：即便在愤怒、愧疚或渴望的时刻已将想法诉诸文字，人们仍可能选择将其保留而不发送，使其成为未发送的消息。这一过程尚未得到充分研究；本文旨在探究人们在数字通信中撰写此类消息的体验。研究发现，未发送消息成为被压抑情感的具象化容器，书写行为本身为反思人际关系与自我认知创造了暂停空间。基于这些发现，我们进一步探究未发送消息书写平台的设计如何影响用户的体验与动机。通过让参与者对笔记平台的九种情感唤起式变体进行构想实验，我们揭示了设计如何塑造未发送消息的情感属性、时间维度与仪式特征，从而展现人们社会性诉求与沟通行为之间微妙的张力关系。