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Comment by furyg3 | Hacker News Reader

"Seen" is not enough information for a sender. It immediately triggers more questions: Are they reading it now? Are they responding now? Are they ignoring me or everyone? Do they not think this is important? Where are they anyway?

I perform triage on my work Inbox several times a day, even on weekends. I have "read" your "important" message, but not really. I've prioritized it for real review on monday afternoon, after I take care of important issues (as prioritized by me). It's better for me and you if we just pretend this moment never happened.

Being in the dark sounds like a bad thing, but it's not. It's better for my mom to think that I haven't seen the long message she wrote on Facebook. After all: who knows what I'm doing?

In reality, I'm fucking around during this conference on the distraction that is Facebook, I'm touched by her message, but I can't exactly reply until tomorrow.

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> Being in the dark sounds like a bad thing, but it's not.

I was struct by this yesterday for something seemingly completely unrelated.

I've ordered a new laptop. An awesome thing about the company I bought it from is that they show average build times based on recently processed orders on their website, presented me with a flowchart of their build process and time estimates (generic estimates), and displays the current status in their process for my laptop.

Being in the dark would have left me not thinking much about it, as usual.

Sometimes I'm even surprised when I get a delivery because I forgot I ordered something (even if I ordered it the day before, sometimes; I do most my shopping online) because it's a non-event, and I know it'll arrive when it arrives.

For a big item like my new laptop it might cross my mind now and again, but until a week or two from ordering, when they indicated it will likely be ready, I wouldn't think much about it.

But now, because I have access to the information, I check it several times a day to see if there's an update. Can't help myself. I keep wondering how far they've gotten. There's no practical benefit to me at all. And it's creating an expectation that wasn't there before, of something happening soon.

In retrospect, I might even have preferred not having the information.

Hence the addition of the FB "feature" in question. It's not for your benefit, it's for Facebook's benefit by boosting your participation.

Exactly. You hit it on the head.

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