Monday, January 5, 2015

First you shape the system, then the system shapes you?

Not really. First they shape FB, then they shape you!

In a bid to have good conversations with all the friends 'befriended' on FB, a few minutes back I was engaged in calibrating the Notification Preferences of my FB account.

After my clicking some "unfollowing" buttons, FB throws a message:
"It looks like you’re using this feature in a way it wasn’t meant to be used. Please slow down, or you could be blocked from using it."


Funny this is, they've built a system in which users might end up taking up such an activity. And if FB has throw such a message, clearly they dislike such an activity or perhaps they didn't anticipate such an activity. Hurts their business, does it?

The verbiage of the warning message above is an interesting one. Read again:
"It looks like you’re using this feature in a way it wasn’t meant to be used. Please slow down, or you could be blocked from using it."
What do they mean 'it wasn't meant to'? Are they the arbiters and judges of meaning?

'Slow down'. What's that? Are they to decide how fast or how slow should I be operating the system?

As easy as it is to consume and post the rubbish that appears on our newsfeed, FB is alright if we suffer from infobesity. FB doesn't want us to get fitter however.