If you indulged in a spot of, ah, Facebook stalking investigating over the weekend, you might have noticed something that wasn’t there before.
Yep, it seems the social media giant has rolled out yet another feature to enrich our lives. Say hello to… Hello:
This brand-spankin' new button sits right up the top of each Facebook profile, and is visible regardless of whether you're friends with the person or not.
Oh, goody - another button to accidentally bump when you're four wines deep and clumsily inspecting the profile of someone you barely know!
Now, the button sounds self-explanatory, but you can never be too sure about these things when it comes to Facebook.
To save you the effort of finding out, I decided to give the Hello a whirl in a controlled environment (i.e. with a willing recipient who wouldn't be creeped out by my 'hello'-ing ways).
I visited my desk neighbour Clare's profile and sent her a little hello:
The good news: you have the option of undoing this action straight away in cases of clumsy thumb scrolling.
The bad news: if your victim has push notifications, they're probably a step ahead of you already.
Listen: Why targeted Facebook ads get under our skin. (Post continues after audio.)
Here's what Clare received for my efforts:
Yep, this is effectively the 2017 equivalent of a Facebook's vintage 'poke' function, only it doesn't make your entire screen shake. (Also, you can still poke people, so it's not a replacement.)
Mercifully, Clare was feeling kind and reciprocated my gesture. Facebook thought it was worth celebrating, confetti and all!
We were also encouraged to take that mutual hello and turn it into something more substantial: a conversation. On Messenger. Which was probably just as easy to do in the first place.
All things considered, your parents will probably love this function. So have fun with that!
Top Comments
I'm guessing this is because if you send a message to someone you are not friends with, it often goes to some other section of the inbox so they might not see it.. or is Hello-ing just available between friends?
I was Facebook stalking the other night. Almost hit the button, almost had a heart attack. Thanks, facebook, for another silly addition no one wanted without fixing any of the things people actually complain about and dont like. Ahhaha.
I prefer to call it "networking" not "stalking".😉
I wish people would stop calling it 'stalking', it devalues the true crime. Facebook profiles are THERE for people to LOOK AT. That's why it has profiles. It is called BROWSING or LOOKING, there is nothing wrong with that. There is no such thing as 'stalking' on Facebook. It is impossible.