Thoughtsbook
I know Facebook wouldn’t have been so big without injecting the endless personalized content through the timeline interface. But I wished that my experience would have been something I describe below instead of the combined timeline of everybody and everything.
The experience I want:
- I connect to keep in touch with someone I meet, in person most of the time.
- I think of the person and open his or her timeline updates.
- I contact them to meet up or chat online over what’s up to feel reconnected 😊
As simple as that. The important thing is Step 2. I think of someone first, then check the updates. Not the other way around.
Maybe the app can also remind me to take time to send prayers and thoughts to someone I care at the end of every day. But the app should do so WITHOUT having an AI recommend anybody. Leave that part to me, Mr. Robot. Not your business.
The essential things in this experience are:
- I take time to think of someone.
- I only think of someone that I care to remember.
- Reconnecting with someone is just one click away.
It’s a “Thoughtsbook”, so to say. It just does one thing: Stay connected only with the people I care enough. It does so without blocking everybody else who wants to stay connected with me. Such a person may grow in me in the future. But until then, I don’t need to see his cat doing silly things.
Or I don’t have to downgrade myself by seeing many people achieving many different things. More than five years ago, I wrote in my journal:
“That is not good, and certainly not fair to myself because I am looking at 10 great people, picking up their talented areas, compiling them as an imaginary Frankenstein who is super good at anything it does. Then I am comparing this monster to me. I always lose in this competition.”
The same thing goes in the opposite direction. Probably many friends aren’t interested in reading my rants and small happenings in my life. But I am someone who wants an outlet. Twitter is my public outlet (I even have a separate Japanese account). I am keeping Facebook a little more private. But it’s an outlet and I admit that I need private audience.
It also helps sometimes to check what’s happening to their lives or even read up their lengthy essays before catching up in person. I also have so many close friends who became remote, at least physically. Today’s. technology helps me to stay connected and continue exchanging thoughts. But the way Facebook currently renders the information in front of my eyes is not truly a human way.
Thoughtbook. Some people may suggest me a similar thing that already exists. But that is not enough. Everybody has to be on for this kind of thing to work, and I never heard of such a thing.
So until then, I will do my best to keep thinking of you and find the best way to catch up, my friend.
