Facebook and How UIs Twist Your Words
I think it's very important to note that the writer of this post deliberately split the chat version into 4 separate messages instead of one, while it's really only a single message (and you can send a single message with line breaks on Facebook).<p>This changes the perception drastically and, more importantly, isn't a fair comparison. The "control" wasn't presented as 4 different messages and it makes total sense that sending more messages would appear more desperate.<p>Consider other mediums:<p>* Phone: someone leaving 4 voicemails in a row is perceived as <i>super</i> desperate in comparison to someone who leaves a single voicemail of the same total length. This is literally a sitcom trope.<p>* Email: someone sending 4 different emails (1 per paragraph) would definitely create a different (negative) impression than someone sending a single email<p>The author pretends to be demonstrating a way that the Facebook UI twists a message but is actually just affirming what is likely a universal trait of messaging: sending more messages before a response signals social awkwardness and desperation.