Offtopic- I hate those features to begin with, but I know I'm the product not the customer, and those features are to keep people on the app.
I had a 3rd party client (aMSN) that would popup a chat window as soon as someone would start typing an initial message to me. I would say "Hi" to them first and they would thing it was a big coincidence that they were trying to talk to me at the same time.
They kept incrementing the server protocol version without updating the client. Eventually all the clients just stopped being able to connect. Strangely, for a long time, only the version bundled with XP stayed working, until eventually it too could no longer connect.
FYI, I don't think that is possible in Slack. You can choose to hide typing indicators in your view, but AFAICT you can't prevent other people from seeing when YOU are typing: https://twitter.com/SlackHQ/status/1057288342671368194
I guess someone like me could make a browser add-on, too. Though I don't know how many people use the browser client vs. the app.
If you run a proxy you could also block those requests.
Likely against their ToS (https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9bc6gi/bye_bye...)
> Hi
(waiting) (waiting) (waiting)
< OK Hi
(typing) (pause) (typing) (pause) (typing) (pause) (typing) (pause)
FFS hurry up already
To me, "seen" is a feedback mechanism. When I send a message to you, I don't always need a response, but I do usually want to know that you saw the message -- sort of an ACK.
But, but, but, it says 'instant messaging' right in the name.
You should reply the _instant_ you get MY message!
Unfortunately some people have the same attitude even towards email...
Maybe I should type a response the moment I receive the text across my phone alerts, but I want the freedom to defer it without having you think I'm ignoring you (even tho I am)
[1] https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/message_seen_remo...
I think the "seen" feature is a net positive though. Almost everyone likes it from the PoV of the sender.
Lets just say it was not my favorite change, and not just for the privacy reasons under discussion.
Isn't that a preference in the notifications setting? "Show Previews" gives the options of "Always", "When Unlocked (Default)", "Never". Perhaps it's just defaulted to "When Unlocked" after an update?
If someone is obsessed about another person, they're going to get the same kind of dopamine rush simply from seeing that the other person is online and active that most of us get from receiving new messages in our inbox or messaging apps. It's tricky to explain, but as you draw closer (or feel like you draw closer) to someone, the urge to be connected and know that they're present becomes overpowering. Moreso if that person is in any way encouraging this kind of dependence / attachment.
It's particularly bad when apps allow this kind of 'presence monitoring' without trying to deal with the obsessive behavior that it causes. Facebook, for example, clearly has the data and the ability to inform both parties of what is happening. Ironically in my case it suggested one of these people as a 'Close Friend'. It seems so much worse if the service provider is (at any level) encouraging these malign use cases - for the purposes of 'engagement', for example.
Fortunately I believe I now have the distance and levelheadedness to see how this all works (in terms of my own psychology, the relationships involved, and also the service providers who intermediated the communications), but it's something I wouldn't wish anyone else to suffer, and we could be a lot more careful about the way we design apps and services to avoid these kind of psychologically damaging situations.
The talk entitled 'What is Good Technology' from the 35c3 congress makes some very good points along these lines, in terms of what we can do improve our technology product decision-making process to avoid causing pain and damage to cultures or people we might not otherwise understand: http://streaming.media.ccc.de/35c3/relive/9965
read two days ago
Yikes.