Some of you may have noticed that Facebook is trailing a new "read receipt" feature for events, letting you see which of your invitees have looked at the invitation. Some of you might also be asking the same question that I am: why?
The pilot scheme is only affecting a select number of users right now, meaning there's a chance it may never roll out to the masses - but why anyone would want this feature is beyond me.
Just stop it
It works both ways. Sometimes I'll read a Facebook message but won't respond until later in the day, and the space between these two moments is filled with flickers of guilt. I can feel the person silently analysing me from afar because I know I'd be doing the same.
When you break it down, it's a power thing. Letting people see when you've read their messages means you have the upper hand in the exchange. Sure, they probably didn't reply for 10 minutes because they were feeding the cat, but you? You read that message and then just walked away, and now you're dangling the hard truth right in front of their face. You utter, utter bastard.
So I'm asking Facebook to kill this idea before it properly gets out of the gate, and for the rest of you I'm making a heartfelt plea: let's all turn off read receipts wherever possible and live in blissful ignorance, never having to confront the hard truth that sometimes people just don't care about us that much.
