kkrell wrote:
On Facebook, which apparently you decline to use ...
This is true.
kkrell wrote:
... the "Like" button is commonly used by the thread originator to mark those messages which they have read (so they can keep track as other messages come in from other responders).
Good to know if ever I go there. Remember, though (just in case anyone got distracted), that this was an ongoing string of phone text messages, not a Facebook conversation online. In this case, the person who "liked" my text response is married to the one who asked for ice, and my niece was pretty confident - unhesitating, even - in her interpretation of the "like"; it seemed that she was well accustomed to how the other ticked in that regard, which makes sense, because even though they're not parent and child, they're close enough to know each other well. I'm the only one in my immediate family (other than Mom) who's not on Facebook, so I don't know the ins and outs of it, but even so, judging by what you say it seems to me that the texting-version "like" really can't be used in quite the same way as on Facebook, so it takes on a different utility. It's all
terra incognita to me in the end, though. But I will say that when I encounter it during family texting sessions, it always seems to be in reference to things that people actually like, such as a cute picture or good news, and it's not necessarily from the thread's originator - and indeed, in this case it was not. There are only a couple or so of us who routinely do it and it's always baffled me to some extent, precisely because it's
not Facebook, and it made me wonder if they were so habituated to the custom that they brought it along, maybe to feel more at home or something.
They would probably be a lot happier if I joined them on Facebook instead of them having to resort to texting to accommodate me, but I just can't bring myself to go there. Maybe some day, but I don't foresee it; with C&F I already spend enough time online as it is.
kkrell wrote:
One interpretation might be that since "the lot of us" were texted, that it is an acknowledgement that you are agreeing to bring the ice, and thus others can disregard, and your "Sure" is accepted.
I suppose it's possible, but since everyone was already on the same page (it being a conference text session), once I hit "send" they would all have gotten my "Sure" message, and that would have settled it: Nano's bringing the ice. We don't overburden the little things by standing on ceremony. So it makes more sense to me that the "liked" text was unlikely to be a notification for the rest to stand down, and was instead just a hard-to-read (for me) way of saying "Thanks".
But who knows. A big pitfall of this desolate style is its vagueness. It may have saved time for the sender, but even now it's still wasting a lot of mine in trying to pin down its meaning. For that matter, none of us seems to know yet, with any certainty, what it meant. Is that communication? It's not dialogue, that's for sure. All it does is leave me saying, "Okay, so you like this. That's nice, I suppose. But what does it have to do with anything?" Guess I'll have to ask the sender directly for their meaning after all, then. Terribly messy, that. I hate messy.