YOUR Facebook notifications are about the change forever (again).
Facebook has announced it is bringing back the Poke button, one of the platforms founding features dating all the way back to 2004.
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The feature hadn’t completely disappeared, though it had largely been retired since around 2014.
The Poke button has been hiding deep inside your Facebook settings all this time.
But it has recently soared in popularity again after web developers made the button more visible.
I poked Priscilla and now we’re married.
Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg
Thanks to a slight design tweak, the number of Pokes exchanged on the platform have increased 13 times, according to Facebook.
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And it has caught the interested of Gen Z and Millennial users aged 18 to 29, who made up roughly half of Pokes in recent weeks.
“Wait, I thought they removed “poke” years and years ago. How do you poke someone now?” one Facebook user wrote on Threads.
Another added: “I remember when FB had that “POKE” button, I just found and my last Pokes were in 2014. Good that it’s back.”
Facebook made changes to the Poke button at the beginning of the year.
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In 2017, there was a minor attempt to bring back the Poke by putting it on profile pages, but the trend didn’t catch back on.
It was all the rage in Facebook’s earlier days, but popularity fizzled out in the 2010s.
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What’s the point of Poking?
Facebook never defined what the idea behind poking was – but users made up their own interpretations.
For many, it was the original button to slide into a person’s DMs.
For others, it was a funny way to annoy someone.
In response to the Poke revival, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg joked on Threads saying: “Nature is healing.”
Zuckerberg then revealed who his first-ever Poke was – confirming to millions that their flirtatious poking efforts were not entirely in vain.
“I poked Priscilla and now we’re married.”
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