"Technically, the poke never really left Facebook. The classic feature from Facebook's early days lets users get a friend's attention with a virtual nudge of sorts. While the poke fell out of use ages ago, the company has more recently seen an uptick in its use among younger users, which has now prompted it to make the poke a more central part of the Facebook experience."
"The poke-tracking feature is largely designed to appeal to younger users who have grown up with gamification elements built into their social apps, like Snapchat and TikTok streaks. These features ostensibly help friends keep track of those they message most, but streaks have come under regulatory scrutiny and have even led to lawsuits because of their addictive nature, as they keep kids hooked on the apps."
Facebook restored and emphasized the poke by adding a dedicated profile button, notification alerts, and a centralized pokes page at facebook.com/pokes. The pokes page shows who poked a user, lets users dismiss pokes, and tracks a mutual poke count that increases with reciprocal pokes. Growing poke counts trigger icons like a fire emoji or "100" beside friends' names to signal milestones. Meta positions the feature to appeal to younger users familiar with gamified social features. Prior search improvements in March 2024 produced a 13x spike in poking. Gamified streak-like mechanics have faced regulatory scrutiny for addictive dynamics.
Read at TechCrunch
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