Be Right Back

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What Does Be Right Back Mean?

“Be right back,” often abbreviated BRB, is a phrase that means that an internet users expects to be away from his or her keyboard for a short time. It is often used as a way to express politeness, so that other users do not wonder why a person is not saying anything for a while.

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Techopedia Explains Be Right Back

“Be right back,” or BRB, is bit of internet slang that means the user expects to be away from the keyboard for a short time, typically only a few minutes.

It is most commonly seen in forms of real-time internet communication, such as Internet Relay Chat or instant messaging. It is rarely used for email, as there is not any assumption that a user is talking in real time to a sender. The term is typically used as a form of politeness in case the other people in a conversation wonder why there has been a gap in a conversation.

Many instant messaging clients also have the ability for users to set their status to “away,” with a visual cue showing that the user is away and cannot be expected to respond immediately to messages.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.