Used to describe someone who is either deliberately blocking incoming BCI transmissions in a social setting — considered rude in contexts where neural-sharing is expected — or who is so cognitively overwhelmed by data load that external pings aren't registering. The phrase comes from early BCI networking terminology but was adapted into social usage by the neural-social communities of the Tier 3 'meshed living' apartment complexes, where residents maintain near-constant low-level BCI ambient sharing as a form of communal intimacy. 'Pinging deaf' by choice in those spaces carries the same social weight as refusing to make eye contact.