Facebook Is Trying To Make ‘pokes’ Happen Again

Technically, nan flick ne'er really near Facebook.

The classical characteristic from Facebook’s early days lets users get a friend’s attraction pinch a virtual nudge of sorts. While nan flick fell retired of usage ages ago, nan institution has much precocious seen an uptick successful its usage among younger users, which has now prompted it to make nan flick a much cardinal portion of nan Facebook experience.

Now, users are capable to flick their friends from a new, dedicated fastener straight connected their Facebook profile, which will alert nan poke’s recipient done their notifications. In addition, Facebook users tin spot who poked them and find friends to flick astatine facebook.com/pokes. On this page, users will beryllium capable to way their “poke count” pinch friends, which grows each clip they flick each other. They tin besides disregard pokes if they don’t want to reciprocate.

ScreenshotImage Credits:Meta (opens successful a caller window)

The poke-tracking characteristic is mostly designed to entreaty to younger users who person grown up pinch gamification elements built into their societal apps, for illustration Snapchat and TikTok streaks. These features ostensibly thief friends support way of those they connection most, but streaks person travel nether regulatory scrutiny and person even led to lawsuits because of their addictive nature, arsenic they support kids hooked connected nan apps.

By highlighting flick counts and making nan flick much salient connected Facebook, Meta wants to create a akin engagement mechanism. As users summation their flick counts pinch a friend, different icons will look adjacent to nan friend’s name, for illustration a occurrence emoji aliases “100,” among others.

This isn’t nan first clip successful caller months that Facebook has tried to revive nan poke. In March 2024, nan institution said it had made it easier for users to find nan poking page via hunt and would make it easier to flick a friend aft searching for them. These mini changes led to a 13x spike successful poking successful nan period aft nan changes, Meta said astatine nan time.

As for why you’d want to flick someone, that’s up to users to decide. Facebook ne'er explained nan intent of nan poke, leaving it unfastened to interpretation. A flick could beryllium a measurement to drawback someone’s attention, flirt, aliases conscionable annoy them, depending connected nan user’s intent.

Poke counts whitethorn ne'er go arsenic celebrated arsenic streaks, but adding them is intelligibly a awesome that Meta is looking to boost Facebook engagement.

According to investigation from Jon Haidt, writer of “The Anxious Generation,” which focused connected societal media’s imaginable harm to children’s encephalon development, Snap had known astir streaks’ habit-forming quality for years. An article he co-published pinch a elder investigation intelligence astatine NYU Stern, Zach Rausch, included quotes from soul documents that show Snap labor discussing really celebrated streaks were and really effective they were astatine driving engagement.

Though Facebook coming remains a rate cattle for Meta’s business, fueling its longer-term bets successful areas for illustration AI and metaverse projects, it has agelong been criticized for failing to entreaty to younger users — a demographic that’s been declining, particularly successful nan U.S. The institution has tried to recapture nan younker marketplace pinch various initiatives, including nan short-lived, college-only feature, Facebook Campus, shuttered successful 2022, and much recently, a Gen Z-focused redesign.