Did You Know You Can Still ‘Poke’ People on Facebook? Here’s How

Yesterday, we asked all of our friends on Facebook to chime in on our poll of the day, "Do you still poke people on Facebook? Why?" To be honest, I had forgotten all about this old feature until just the other day.

My Friend Nathan Poked Me!

When I walked into the studio Monday morning, Chad said, "Hey! My friend Nathan poked me on Facebook this weekend. Did you know you can still do that?" To which I responded, "Hey! MY friend Nathan poked me this weekend too!" As a self-proclaimed nerd for nostalgic technology, Nathan Seaton wanted to remind people that the "legacy poke feature" still exists.

The Early Days of The Facebook

When I first joined Facebook in 2005, it was just for college folks. I was a huge Myspace fan and was skeptical of this "new" online community. I do remember friends randomly poking me and being confused as to why it existed when they could just message me if they wanted to say "hi." Apparently, the creation of the "poke" button is just as random as its usage.

The Legend of the Facebook Poke

Nathan joined us on the show this morning to explain the "legend" of how it came to be. Have a listen!

He also gave us a quick tutorial because Chad and I couldn't figure out how to find the "poke button." All you have to do is type the word "poke" in the search bar and hit "enter" on your keyboard. Then your screen will look like this:

Click on the link that says "Pokes" which takes you to where you can select friends to poke and see who poked you.

Before Nathan poked me, I hadn't been poked since 2017! I poked Nathan back and then Barb and my hubs as an experiment. They've returned my poke and now await my response. I'm still not sure of the point of a poke, but Nathan suggested we all use it as a way to let folks know we're thinking of them.

Get our free mobile app

Or, like the legend of the poke, if you know someone is working too hard, you can poke them to help them snap out of it and have a little fun instead.