Threads Is Not Chat
Aisha Malik
What on Earth is Threads doing?
Meta’s X rival Threads is rolling out a new “activity status” feature that will let you see when someone on the social network is online. Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced the feature on Tuesday in a Threads post, noting that it’s meant to act as “a way to help you find others to engage with in real-time.”
Look, I want Threads to be a real-time information network as much as anyone. But not like this. Not like this.
I could see Meta building such a feature in 2004 when AOL Instant Messenger was a dominant form of communication, but in 2024? Was Meta confused for a minute? Did they think they were pushing an update to Messenger? I get that they love the conversation element of replies in Threads, and presumably they thought such a "live" signal would supercharge usage. But Threads ultimately is still a asynchronous service. It's not a chat app because it's not a chat app. Meta has enough chat apps. Threads is different.
Do they understand that? Sometimes I'm really not sure.
If anything, I wonder if that green dot doesn't dissuade some people from replying because it adds a weird pressure to what should be a passive conversation. Unless you're a Reply Guy or just a troll, then this feature is awesome! "Hey, look that person is over at the watercooler right now, let's get them!"
Thankfully, you can turn the setting off, and only users who have the feature turned on will be able to see when you’re online.
Phew.
Men will literally shove a status indicator into Threads rather than just building direct messaging capabilities.
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler