Do you recall the days of poking your friends on Facebook to grab their attention, irritate them, or instigate a poking war? Well, Facebook is making an effort to revive that experience with a few subtle updates to their poking feature.
The company announced on Tuesday that they have recently enhanced the platform’s suggestions on who to poke and have also made it easier to access the poking page through search. Additionally, Facebook has now provided the option to poke a friend directly when searching for them on the social network.
According to Facebook, these minor modifications have resulted in a 13x surge in poking in the past month. Despite not being present for the initial craze of poking, young users are now starting to embrace the feature. In fact, Facebook reports that more than half of all pokes are coming from 18 to 29 year olds.
Poking is one of the oldest features on Facebook, dating back to the platform’s inception in 2004. However, it was eventually tucked away in the navigation as its popularity declined. Facebook never explicitly defined the purpose of poking, leaving it open to interpretation by users. Some saw it as a way to flirt with others.
Now, as Facebook approaches its 20th birthday, they are bringing back the poking feature and positioning it as a simple way to say “hi” to a friend.
You may be wondering, “I haven’t poked anyone in over a decade, why start now?” But perhaps you should be asking yourself, “Why not?”
