Just what is the value of a poke?
Clearly the value of a facebook poke is not exactly zero. Twere that the case, no one would bother with them except as whim and fancy strikes them. Given that I consistently have 10-20 pokes and an occasional poke war, I don't think this would be the correct valuation.
On the other hand, while I nearly always have 10-20 pokes, for months now, with a large exception I've also gotten fuck all in the way of phone calls from anyone except family or business interests. The exception, of course, is typically a series of texts regarding scheduling and directions for an event, and these are always very brief in time. So I'd say the value of a poke as signal is very small, along the lines of "Oh yeah, that person exists. I'll poke 'em back." This is so small an investment, so little an information exchange, so minuscule a measure of bonding, that it really isn't the building of relationship.
I know of one social networking site that tried rationing out their analogue to the poke, but I got negative utility out of that site, so I don't know how that works out. It might increase each interaction's value since the interactions then become a scarce resource, but I can also imagine a scenario where enforced frugality would make something approximately useless, such as when the cost of using it is so high that no one will ever use one.
On the other hand, while I nearly always have 10-20 pokes, for months now, with a large exception I've also gotten fuck all in the way of phone calls from anyone except family or business interests. The exception, of course, is typically a series of texts regarding scheduling and directions for an event, and these are always very brief in time. So I'd say the value of a poke as signal is very small, along the lines of "Oh yeah, that person exists. I'll poke 'em back." This is so small an investment, so little an information exchange, so minuscule a measure of bonding, that it really isn't the building of relationship.
I know of one social networking site that tried rationing out their analogue to the poke, but I got negative utility out of that site, so I don't know how that works out. It might increase each interaction's value since the interactions then become a scarce resource, but I can also imagine a scenario where enforced frugality would make something approximately useless, such as when the cost of using it is so high that no one will ever use one.