fb+poking+wiki

== Overview An automatic feature on every personal Facebook page, the poke has recently worked its way into the English language as something more than an irritating prod from the person sitting next to you. Now located on the top right corner of everyone’s profile, the poke button waits with an alluring index finger icon pointing to a single word. While most features on Facebook are relatively straightforward and self-indicative, the purpose of poking is vague and the results of poking have been known to vary. In the Facebook help center, the first explanation for pokes read as follows: “the poke feature can be used for a variety of things on Facebook. For instance, you can poke your friends to say hello. When you poke someone, they will receive a poke alert on their home page”. But why not just post a “hello” comment? Turns out, pokes are private. And after receiving one of these sneaky little notifications on your homepage, you can either “remove poke” or “poke back”. This leaves room for two inevitable courses of action: 1) the poke is removed, ignored and forgotten by the recipient, while the sender sits in sorrow wondering what he or she could of done so wrong that their friend or crush couldn’t press a single button in response. 2) The poke is eagerly retaliated, and a poking war ensues. Luckily, the poke is a mildly harmless Facebook feature, and any hard feelings caused by a quick battle can be easily quenched by actual human interaction or at the very least, a written comment to their profile page. Not to mention, “once a poke is hidden, its gone forever”. So next time you want to let someone know your thinking about them, but don’t want to say anything or reveal the context of your thoughts, look to the top of their Facebook page and send a quick poke. ==

**Data/Research**
[|facebook help center]

**History**
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**Opinion**
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**Future Trends?**
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