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Yuck. If interacting with me is such a chore that someone has to automate it, I'd rather not hear from them. People don't want to be your duties. They want to

Yuck. If interacting with me is such a chore that someone has to automate it, I'd rather not hear from them. People don't want to be your duties. They want to be your pleasures. This changes messages from "I felt like talking to you" to "my scheduled trigger fired; please start a conversation so I can check you off my checklist." If I found out someone were using this to communicate with me, I'd frankly cut them out of my life -- not out of hatred, but because I'm not a sadist. If it's tedious for you to talk to me, I don't want to cause you that pain.

fastball 5y ago
I feel like you're conflating the friction of starting a conversation with the friction of continuing one, which can be very different things.
- trutannus 5y ago
  Most of the negative views on this app appear to fundamentally misunderstand how highly introverted people socialize. I know several highly introverted people. Having something automatically start a conversation for them which they can then engage in themselves would be very helpful. Especially for people who have social anxiety. My take was never that this app was going to socialize for you, but rather would initiate conversations for you which you could then finish yourself. There's nothing wrong with doing that...
  - jbuhbjlnjbn 5y ago
    What an interesting point. I highly value your opinion. -this message was created by an automated bot
- brushfoot 5y ago
  There's no friction in starting something you love to do. If you don't love talking to someone that you don't have to talk to, you shouldn't do it. You're putting them in the awkward position of having to converse with someone that they know doesn't want to converse with them. And yes, they'll know. The dryness of the sample messages is tip-off enough. Personally, I hate hearing from people like this -- not because I dislike them or they bore me, but because I'm not a sadist. I don't like the pain and boredom that I sense they're experiencing in trying to force themselves to talk to me out of duty. There are other ways to connect with people besides conversation. As the Fred Rogers song goes, "There are many ways to say I love you....There's the singing way....Cleaning up a room can say I love you; hanging up a coat before you're asked to do it; drawing special pictures on the holidays; and making plays." That will look different for an adult than a child, but the principle still applies.
  - fastball 5y ago
    > There's no friction in starting something you love to do. That may be true for you; it's not true for everyone. Nobody in this thread who thinks this app might be useful has mentioned people they need speak to "out of duty". I feel like you are projecting how you operate on to everyone else and not actually listening to what they are saying. I'm sorry you have frequently experienced people that are clearly bored when talking to you. This is not something I have experienced much at all. What I have experienced is friends who lead busy lives and just don't get around to it because they have 10 other things on the docket. When eventually we do get around to talking (usually because of some trigger on either end), the conversations are enjoyable and we are glad to have them. But the idea that someone isn't "important" enough just because you're not consciously thinking about them rather than the many other important responsibilities in your life is one I find silly. We are busy people with a lot of things on our mind. At the same time, some people (clearly) would like a slightly more consistent system that causes them to talk to their friends than a random trigger on social media or what have you.
    - brushfoot 5y ago
      > I'm sorry you have frequently experienced people that are clearly bored when talking to you. There's no need for the ad hominem. Again, the problem with this is not that it's scheduled, it's that it's canned. It's like training a robot to do foreplay. Is it that joyless that I have to let it kickstart the sex before I come into the room? Scheduling a reminder to talk is one thing. But sending a canned opener that I thought of another day and in another mood says that I don't have anything interesting or fun to share with the other person, and if I don't, why should I talk to them? It puts the onus on them.
  - jlokier 5y ago
    > There's no friction in starting something you love to do. That's simply untrue in a lot of areas of life, perhaps most of them. Speaking for myself I often find it incredibly difficult to start the things I love doing the most once I've started. For many people it's especially hard to start conversations they love to have. There's a high "activation energy" to get over the hump - and it can take significant time as well, it's not just willpower and mood thing. Combine that intense activation energy hump with a busy, pressured life, and you get high friction for initating conversations with people they love keeping in touch with. Add "social forgetfulness" (call it focus if you like) where people don't think of their friends and other loved ones until prompted by a context, at which point they remember very fondly and want to keep in touch, but face a high activation energy hump during the moment that thought happens, and you have a recipe for people where social reminders can be helpful. Unfortunately it's the sort of tool some other people would use to maintain artificial conviviality, for example to keep up "business networking" and remain on prospects' radar. Fake friendships with a motivation. I suspect that's where some of the instinctive animosity to this kind of tool comes from. The "how long has it been since I talked with" reminder part of this tool is what some people have integrated into their brains by default, and others don't seem to. It doesn't mean the former brains love those they keep in touch with more. It probably means their internal scheduler and memory triggers work differently.
- npteljes 5y ago
  I empathize with this point. But I don't know if the app would really work as a solution - maybe as long as the other party doesn't realize it. In media there's a trope where the relationship began as a joke, a prank, a dare, or something like that, but then the feelings realize and the relationship becomes real. That works until the genuine one realizes that the initial intent was fake, and that ruins the whole thing. While this is a trope, I think it illustrates well how people think about things like this, and why this kind of app is not productive in the end. It's another case, maybe, if one writes an app for themselves. That, if it ever comes to light, can translate to a genuine effort, if the other party has enough empathy. But using someone else's app for this, to me, would just look lazy and/or fake.
xeromal 5y ago
It's funny the divide between this app, but I'll give you my POV. I'm a bit of a spaz and about one of the most forgetful people you'll ever meet. I go out of my way to ask someone their name and I'll literally forget it within a minute. It's not that I intend to. I'm someone with a single-track mind that tends to really focus only on one thing. I'm in awe of my fiance who can hold a conversation while remembering that we have to feed the meter before it expires and also remember to ask the waiter for more napkins. I absolutely love my mom, brothers and sisters, dad, etc, but I just can't remember to do so and I've automated my life with reminders that vibrate my phone so I'll give my mom or dad a call every other day. I don't think I'm a bad person or emotionally evil, I'm just not wired for internal reminders to do so. I'm genuinely pumped for this app.
- jbuhbjlnjbn 5y ago
  You use the reminders to counter your personal flaws, but do the contacting yourself - that's good. But automating sending messages? Fake caring? If you cannot instantly see the problem, that, frankly, comes across as psychpathic. It is creepy as all hell.
mrleinad 5y ago
It is tedious for me to have to remember friends and family's birthdays. I care about them, but I don't want to have the mental hassle of actually remembering that today is someone's birthday. So I have a calendar remind me of that. Am I a bad friend because I do that? If not, why is it so different than texting someone because you haven't interacted with them for a while? Would it be better if instead of automatically texting them, it would "remind you" to text them and give you a text suggestion?
- npteljes 5y ago
  I think it has to do with the effort you put in. These things you do for the other person, shows the effort, and your intent behind it. An automated message is devoid of this. Maybe there was effort behind it, maybe there wasn't. So it's not much of a useful signal, in fact, it's the opposite: it signals that you don't care, because you don't put the effort in. I have a friend who feels a duty to keep up with others, in a way that to me feels forced. Therefore, when they ask me what's up, I'm reminded of this dutifulness, and it doesn't feel like a genuine human connection. To relate all this to your comment: I think a calendar is nice. You have to make an effort to get the dates, and note them one by one. And when the date comes, you make an effort to communicate. Now, compare this to my Facebook experience. Every year, tens of messages wishing me a happy birthday. Feels good, kinda. Last year, I quit Facebook some months before my birthday. The the day came, and I got exactly zero messages. Where did my friends go? Were the previous messages worth anything?

fastball 5y ago

I feel like you're conflating the friction of starting a conversation with the friction of continuing one, which can be very different things.

trutannus 5y ago
Most of the negative views on this app appear to fundamentally misunderstand how highly introverted people socialize. I know several highly introverted people. Having something automatically start a conversation for them which they can then engage in themselves would be very helpful. Especially for people who have social anxiety. My take was never that this app was going to socialize for you, but rather would initiate conversations for you which you could then finish yourself. There's nothing wrong with doing that...
- jbuhbjlnjbn 5y ago
  What an interesting point. I highly value your opinion. -this message was created by an automated bot
brushfoot 5y ago
There's no friction in starting something you love to do. If you don't love talking to someone that you don't have to talk to, you shouldn't do it. You're putting them in the awkward position of having to converse with someone that they know doesn't want to converse with them. And yes, they'll know. The dryness of the sample messages is tip-off enough. Personally, I hate hearing from people like this -- not because I dislike them or they bore me, but because I'm not a sadist. I don't like the pain and boredom that I sense they're experiencing in trying to force themselves to talk to me out of duty. There are other ways to connect with people besides conversation. As the Fred Rogers song goes, "There are many ways to say I love you....There's the singing way....Cleaning up a room can say I love you; hanging up a coat before you're asked to do it; drawing special pictures on the holidays; and making plays." That will look different for an adult than a child, but the principle still applies.
- fastball 5y ago
  > There's no friction in starting something you love to do. That may be true for you; it's not true for everyone. Nobody in this thread who thinks this app might be useful has mentioned people they need speak to "out of duty". I feel like you are projecting how you operate on to everyone else and not actually listening to what they are saying. I'm sorry you have frequently experienced people that are clearly bored when talking to you. This is not something I have experienced much at all. What I have experienced is friends who lead busy lives and just don't get around to it because they have 10 other things on the docket. When eventually we do get around to talking (usually because of some trigger on either end), the conversations are enjoyable and we are glad to have them. But the idea that someone isn't "important" enough just because you're not consciously thinking about them rather than the many other important responsibilities in your life is one I find silly. We are busy people with a lot of things on our mind. At the same time, some people (clearly) would like a slightly more consistent system that causes them to talk to their friends than a random trigger on social media or what have you.
  - brushfoot 5y ago
    > I'm sorry you have frequently experienced people that are clearly bored when talking to you. There's no need for the ad hominem. Again, the problem with this is not that it's scheduled, it's that it's canned. It's like training a robot to do foreplay. Is it that joyless that I have to let it kickstart the sex before I come into the room? Scheduling a reminder to talk is one thing. But sending a canned opener that I thought of another day and in another mood says that I don't have anything interesting or fun to share with the other person, and if I don't, why should I talk to them? It puts the onus on them.
- jlokier 5y ago
  > There's no friction in starting something you love to do. That's simply untrue in a lot of areas of life, perhaps most of them. Speaking for myself I often find it incredibly difficult to start the things I love doing the most once I've started. For many people it's especially hard to start conversations they love to have. There's a high "activation energy" to get over the hump - and it can take significant time as well, it's not just willpower and mood thing. Combine that intense activation energy hump with a busy, pressured life, and you get high friction for initating conversations with people they love keeping in touch with. Add "social forgetfulness" (call it focus if you like) where people don't think of their friends and other loved ones until prompted by a context, at which point they remember very fondly and want to keep in touch, but face a high activation energy hump during the moment that thought happens, and you have a recipe for people where social reminders can be helpful. Unfortunately it's the sort of tool some other people would use to maintain artificial conviviality, for example to keep up "business networking" and remain on prospects' radar. Fake friendships with a motivation. I suspect that's where some of the instinctive animosity to this kind of tool comes from. The "how long has it been since I talked with" reminder part of this tool is what some people have integrated into their brains by default, and others don't seem to. It doesn't mean the former brains love those they keep in touch with more. It probably means their internal scheduler and memory triggers work differently.
npteljes 5y ago
I empathize with this point. But I don't know if the app would really work as a solution - maybe as long as the other party doesn't realize it. In media there's a trope where the relationship began as a joke, a prank, a dare, or something like that, but then the feelings realize and the relationship becomes real. That works until the genuine one realizes that the initial intent was fake, and that ruins the whole thing. While this is a trope, I think it illustrates well how people think about things like this, and why this kind of app is not productive in the end. It's another case, maybe, if one writes an app for themselves. That, if it ever comes to light, can translate to a genuine effort, if the other party has enough empathy. But using someone else's app for this, to me, would just look lazy and/or fake.

xeromal 5y ago

It's funny the divide between this app, but I'll give you my POV. I'm a bit of a spaz and about one of the most forgetful people you'll ever meet. I go out of my way to ask someone their name and I'll literally forget it within a minute. It's not that I intend to. I'm someone with a single-track mind that tends to really focus only on one thing. I'm in awe of my fiance who can hold a conversation while remembering that we have to feed the meter before it expires and also remember to ask the waiter for more napkins. I absolutely love my mom, brothers and sisters, dad, etc, but I just can't remember to do so and I've automated my life with reminders that vibrate my phone so I'll give my mom or dad a call every other day. I don't think I'm a bad person or emotionally evil, I'm just not wired for internal reminders to do so. I'm genuinely pumped for this app.

jbuhbjlnjbn 5y ago
You use the reminders to counter your personal flaws, but do the contacting yourself - that's good. But automating sending messages? Fake caring? If you cannot instantly see the problem, that, frankly, comes across as psychpathic. It is creepy as all hell.

mrleinad 5y ago

It is tedious for me to have to remember friends and family's birthdays. I care about them, but I don't want to have the mental hassle of actually remembering that today is someone's birthday. So I have a calendar remind me of that. Am I a bad friend because I do that? If not, why is it so different than texting someone because you haven't interacted with them for a while? Would it be better if instead of automatically texting them, it would "remind you" to text them and give you a text suggestion?

npteljes 5y ago
I think it has to do with the effort you put in. These things you do for the other person, shows the effort, and your intent behind it. An automated message is devoid of this. Maybe there was effort behind it, maybe there wasn't. So it's not much of a useful signal, in fact, it's the opposite: it signals that you don't care, because you don't put the effort in. I have a friend who feels a duty to keep up with others, in a way that to me feels forced. Therefore, when they ask me what's up, I'm reminded of this dutifulness, and it doesn't feel like a genuine human connection. To relate all this to your comment: I think a calendar is nice. You have to make an effort to get the dates, and note them one by one. And when the date comes, you make an effort to communicate. Now, compare this to my Facebook experience. Every year, tens of messages wishing me a happy birthday. Feels good, kinda. Last year, I quit Facebook some months before my birthday. The the day came, and I got exactly zero messages. Where did my friends go? Were the previous messages worth anything?