Nina KalininaJul 1

Today I was reminded that old online chats offered context awareness for the people online: you knew you won't be a bother to a friend who has a smiley flower as a status; and you knew you might not be getting a quick reply from someone who's Away.

Today I don't even know if my friends are online or not. The messenger apps make the assumption that everyone is online, and if not, they will receive a push notification, and will reply to you as soon as possible. But this assumption is barely true. I bet it makes lives harder, especially for ND people

(Edited for a pixel-perfect screenshot)

Show threaddistinctivestaticJul 1
@nina_kali_nina See, I used to turn this off. I hate people knowing when I'm online. I always assumed the default is "not available".
I think it says a lot that at some point in the mobile phone era, the default became "available."
Show threadNina Kalinina
@distinctivestatic I think setting it to "invisible" should be the default. Perhaps, G+ style, you'd want to expose your presence to one group of people but not the other. But on a sad rainy day when you really want to talk to someone, you'd set the status to "free to talk" and will enjoy a sudden reach out by an old friend, maybe. Plus, you won't need to assume things about your friends, you'd know if it's okay to message them if you feel like doing it
Jul 1 at 5:22pmWeb
Show threaddistinctivestaticJul 1
@nina_kali_nina Invisible still assumes someone is there, though. Invisibly haunting like a ghost.
I do like the idea of having different "levels" of access, though.
Show threadNina KalininaJul 1
@distinctivestatic yeah, Google Plus circles were created exactly for this purpose, if I'm not misremembering. But Google being Google, and Facebook being Facebook, we ended up with what we have now.