One of Facebook’s most notorious features from its heyday is making a comeback.
In time for its 20th anniversary, the social media company announced on Tuesday that it's putting renewed focus on the mysterious “poke,” a feature it effectively buried over a decade ago, TechCrunch reports.
If you were too young to have an account back then or if Facebook just wasn’t your thing, “poking” is one of the platform’s oldest features with several uses. According to a 2017 post from Complex’s Joshua Espinoza, it began as a quick and easy way to say hello—even if no one really knew what the option was for. For some, poking was used at "the original DM slide."
Though the feature was never officially discontinued, it got "tucked away in the navigation after it lost popularity," per TechCrunch.
Now the poke is getting some upgrades, including suggestions for who to poke and easier access to the poking page through the search bar. Users can also now poke a friend directly when searching for them on the platform.
According to TechCrunch, the effort looks like it's already paying off. Facebook reports that poking activity has significantly increased by 1,300 percent in the past month. Despite a decline in popularity with Gen Z, younger users, particularly those aged 18 to 29, are reportedly embracing the feature.
Facebook is the fifth most-used social media platform for teens, according to a 2023 report from the Pew Research Center. Although YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram remain at the top, a recent article from the New York Times suggests that Gen Z loves to thrift shop and score bargain deals on Facebook Marketplace rather than platforms like Craigslist.
