Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Who likes to use the "read" function in chat software?

On social software, as soon as you send a message to the other person, the message immediately becomes "the other person has read". But I stared at the chat box and waited for five minutes, but I couldn't wait for a reply from each other. Everyone would be furious.

▲ "the most annoying people who can't read back!" Weibo

This function not only makes the sender uneasy, but also makes the recipient feel on pins and needles: if you receive a message that you may not want to reply, do you think I will read it or not?

It really doesn't make sense for this "annoying" read function not to award it an award for the most anti-human invention in the 21st century.

The ▲ animation "Miss Huiyue" also mentions the read function (@ I love Luo Li Matsui Shishiro / Bilibili).

How annoying is the read function? The official name for the read function is the read receipt (read receipt). Functionally, this thing is not new.

In an era when communication is not convenient, whether it is the receipt of a registered letter or the delivery status notice (Delivery Status Notification) in an e-mail, the purpose is to reassure you that there is nothing wrong with the delivery process and that your message has been safely delivered.

Generally speaking, there is a read receipt function in ▲ e-mail boxes.

But today, when you are online, the receipt you have read will only make you worry more.

How do you feel when you see the other person read the message but don't reply? "did I say something wrong?"what's wrong with TA?"TA doesn't reply to me even though he / she has posted a message on moments. He just doesn't want to chat with me."

Some people really take advantage of this and deliberately make the other person uncomfortable by not being able to read it back. In 2011, "rbomb" was added to the Urban Dictionary dictionary. The interpretation of the word is also full of "resentment": it is usually deliberate not to reply or ignore after reading the message.

▲ under the topic of # rbomb, many people are complaining that the other person can no longer read Twitter.

In the dating software, read also let a lot of people "crazy", and even formed a kind of stem. One second, the other person was still "Hello, get to know each other". As a result, when he found out that you had read it but did not reply to the message, the other person was immediately exasperated and cursed: put down your posture!

This also makes the recipient feel anxious about what he has read. You said that I happen to be free to read a message right now, but I don't have time to reply, so should I click on this message? Not only that, when we receive a message from a friend we haven't contacted for years, or an invitation from an unfamiliar colleague, our reading status will also make it impossible for us to be "invisible" and we have to reply.

People take great pains to read information "secretly" by ▲. Google

Sometimes, this can be regarded as an emotional "abuse".

There are also many studies on read receipts, including one that counted 108 students' views on reading receipts. It turns out that as the sender of the message, 35% of people feel ignored when they see a message that they can't read back. Others will also feel fear and anxiety. Conversely, even as the recipient of the message, 29.7% of people felt guilty even before replying to the message with the ability to read the receipt.

In the ▲ survey, most of the recipients also felt bad. [5]

At the same time, because of the emergence of this function, nearly half of the people will click on the chat repeatedly and keep checking. On the other hand, 81.9% of people will try all kinds of ways to avoid "read", such as checking messages only on the lock screen. The survey also pointed out that the anxiety was even more serious in an uncertain dating relationship, with respondents saying it was a "mental game".

Read receipts are not useless, and turning on this feature in a formal workplace does improve collaboration efficiency. But when it "invades" our lives and tries to "monitor" our every move, it may be our consensus to turn off this function.

However, in the eyes of the inventors, this stressful function is instead a "masterpiece".

BlackBerry, come out "scolded" in 2018, BlackBerry sued Facebook, saying it infringed a number of functional patents. In the submission, BlackBerry also showed off its "great achievements":

BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) is considered to be the first messaging platform to support status updates (status updates), which can show when users deliver and read messages. This creates a groundbreaking sense of real-time presence. At present, it has also become a standard function of instant messaging applications.

The person who has read the receipt is BlackBerry. In 2005, BlackBerry officially launched BlackBerry Messenger, providing people with another way to communicate in addition to text messages. As long as everyone uses BlackBerry phones, they can use BlackBerry's PIN system to chat with each other.

At that time, read receipt became a bright feature of BBM. In the era of inconvenient communication, people want to establish a real-time connection with others and quickly get each other's status. BlackBerry applied for the patent "processing notifications in Instant messaging system" (Handling notifications in instant messaging systems) in 2006, which introduced the implementation of delivery and read receipt.

▲ BBM version 1. 0 (originally called QuickMessenger) uses the read receipt feature. The updated interface also retains this function (the green "R" is "read") (blackberry.com)

Today, read receipts are no longer exclusive to BlackBerry, and major manufacturers are scrambling to introduce this "easy to use" feature. When Apple introduced iMessage at the 2011 developer conference, it also specially demonstrated the functions of delivery and read receipt. Just after the introduction, there was thunderous applause from the audience.

▲ Apple's 2011 developer Conference (subtitles are automatic recognition and add): Michael Noriega / Youtube

Although the consumer version of BBM is out of service, the most controversial technology it leaves remains in the chat software. When BBM was originally designed, people wanted to use it as a chat software that could update users' status in real time. But at present, more and more people want to escape from the Internet. However, this function has lasted for a long time and has been favored by more and more manufacturers.

Your anxiety, the manufacturer's happiness when you repeatedly open the chat software to check whether the other party has "read" may be exactly what software operators want. When we feel anxious, upset, or angry, the longer we use the software and the more data we contribute to the software.

Tony D.Sampson Sampson, a professor at East London University who studies digital media culture and communication, believes that "read receipts" designed by social media make users addicted to these App by triggering negative emotions associated with obsessive-compulsive behaviour.

Similar to "can't read back", both Snapchat and QQ have released the "chat spark" feature, which gives you a spark or other special symbol after chatting with a friend for XX days. In order to maintain this "spark", people must chat day after day (also known as Snapstreak). When the "spark" disappeared, many Snapchat teenage users showed negative emotions.

For software operators, getting people to start talking is how they make money. "Whatsapp wants 1 billion people from 180 countries to continue to sign in, and Facebook is looking forward to the explosion of your phone."

"We are actually programmed on social media, but you don't realize it," Chamath Palihapitiya, a former vice president of user community growth at Facebook, said in a speech.

Fortunately, the voice of users is getting stronger and stronger, which forces more and more manufacturers to return the right of choice to users, no longer force to turn on this function.

Referenc

[1] 'Message read. But what kind of weirdo keeps read receipts on?', https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/17/message-read-but-what-kind-of-weirdo-keeps-read-receipts-on

[2] BlackBerry Messenger dies today, but it'll never truly be gone', https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/31/18646429/blackberry-messenger-ending-group-chats-read-receipts-rim-apple-android-imessage

[3] 'How' seen' messages on Facebook mess with your mental health', https://www.dazeddigital.com/science-tech/article/38010/1/how-seen-messages-on-facebook-mess-with-your-mental-health

[4] 'Devastated Snapchatters talk about the heartbreak of losing a Snapstreak after hundreds of days', https://mashable.com/article/breaking-snapstreak-snapchat-streak

[5] Lynden, James, and Teis Rasmussen. "Exploring the impact of'read receipts' in Mobile Instant Messaging." Tidsskrift for Medier, Erkendelse Og Formidling 5.1 (2017).

[6] 'Read Receipts: The Psychology of Emotional Manipulation', https://oozestudios.com.au/read-receipts-the-psychology-of-emotional-manipulation/

[7] 'Handling notifications in instant messaging systems', US8572182B2, https://patents.google.com/patent/US9219703B2/

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: fruit Shell (ID:Guokr42), author: Chen Mou Editor: Owl, window knocking Rain

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