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Show HN: I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people

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Re: Show HN: I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people

#161

Post by jbuhbjlnjbn »

xeromal wrote: post #111
brushfoot wrote: post #68

Yuck. If interacting with me is such a chore that someone has to automate it, I'd rather not hear from them. People don't want to be your duties. They want to be your pleasures. This changes messages from "I felt like talking to you" to "my scheduled trigger fired; please start a conversation so I can check you off my checklist." If I found out someone were using this to communicate with me, I'd frankly cut them out…

It's funny the divide between this app, but I'll give you my POV. I'm a bit of a spaz and about one of the most forgetful people you'll ever meet. I go out of my way to ask someone their name and I'll literally forget it within a minute. It's not that I intend to. I'm someone with a single-track mind that tends to really focus only on one thing. I'm in awe of my fiance who can hold a conversation while remembering th…

You use the reminders to counter your personal flaws, but do the contacting yourself - that's good.

But automating sending messages? Fake caring? If you cannot instantly see the problem, that, frankly, comes across as psychpathic. It is creepy as all hell.

Re: Show HN: I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people

#162

Post by jbuhbjlnjbn »

trutannus wrote: post #85
fastball wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you're conflating the friction of starting a conversation with the friction of continuing one, which can be very different things.

Most of the negative views on this app appear to fundamentally misunderstand how highly introverted people socialize. I know several highly introverted people. Having something automatically start a conversation for them which they can then engage in themselves would be very helpful. Especially for people who have social anxiety. My take was never that this app was going to socialize for you, but rather would initiat…

What an interesting point. I highly value your opinion.

-this message was created by an automated bot

Re: Show HN: I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people

#163

Post by smsm42 »

I'm not sure I'd like to get a message from a friend that was actually written by an automated app. As an introvert, I am ok with people being silent friends with me for a while. But somebody started bombarding me with automatically scripted messages which they didn't personally write and meant to send then and there - if that was a close friend, I'd ask what's wrong with them and whether I can help to fix it, because certainly if it'd be ok they'd never do something so bizarre. Otherwise I'd probably just sigh and block them.

Sorry, I don't mean it as a personal criticism towards you, if it works for you and your friends, all power to you. Just expressing another view on this topic.

Re: Show HN: I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people

#164

Post by jbuhbjlnjbn »

I mean no hostility or disrespect when I say this.

It is astonishing so many people commenting in this thread cannot see the giant, glaring issue with such a disingenious app.

Everyone no seeing an issue should for his/her own sake do a sociopathy/psychopathy test to check.

Re: Show HN: I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people

#165

Post by smt88 »

jlokier wrote: post #141
smt88 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then you end up with unread messages for weeks at a time. If people are a priority for you, then you need to just make time. No one is unable to spare 5 minutes to text back. You just have to sacrifice 5 minutes of something else, whether it's work, a video game, or a hobby. If you can't spare that, then I guess accept that those people aren't that important to you.

It takes many of us longer than 5 minutes to compose the BEST response (part of option 2), especially if you have a queue built up.

The "best" response doesn't objectively exist, but if it did, it would be a function of both time and quality.

For example, when you take 24 hours to respond, the message you're sending is that the person is a low priority, regardless of what text you've composed.

People who feel that anxious about composing the best reply should seek therapy to help them tolerate the distress of doing things imperfectly.

Re: Show HN: I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people

#166

Post by randomdata »

smt88 wrote: post #137
randomdata wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't open the app to read the message until you have time to respond, then commit to responding. Then you end up with unread messages for weeks at a time.

> Then you end up with unread messages for weeks at a time. If people are a priority for you, then you need to just make time. No one is unable to spare 5 minutes to text back. You just have to sacrifice 5 minutes of something else, whether it's work, a video game, or a hobby. If you can't spare that, then I guess accept that those people aren't that important to you.

> I guess accept that those people aren't that important to you.

The great irony is that when they aren't important, the response is quick and easy. Your poor choice of words can piss them off and you don't have to care.

Re: Show HN: I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people

#167

Post by npteljes »

mrleinad wrote: post #151
brushfoot wrote: post #68

Yuck. If interacting with me is such a chore that someone has to automate it, I'd rather not hear from them. People don't want to be your duties. They want to be your pleasures. This changes messages from "I felt like talking to you" to "my scheduled trigger fired; please start a conversation so I can check you off my checklist." If I found out someone were using this to communicate with me, I'd frankly cut them out…

It is tedious for me to have to remember friends and family's birthdays. I care about them, but I don't want to have the mental hassle of actually remembering that today is someone's birthday. So I have a calendar remind me of that. Am I a bad friend because I do that? If not, why is it so different than texting someone because you haven't interacted with them for a while? Would it be better if instead of automatical…

I think it has to do with the effort you put in. These things you do for the other person, shows the effort, and your intent behind it. An automated message is devoid of this. Maybe there was effort behind it, maybe there wasn't. So it's not much of a useful signal, in fact, it's the opposite: it signals that you don't care, because you don't put the effort in. I have a friend who feels a duty to keep up with others, in a way that to me feels forced. Therefore, when they ask me what's up, I'm reminded of this dutifulness, and it doesn't feel like a genuine human connection.

To relate all this to your comment: I think a calendar is nice. You have to make an effort to get the dates, and note them one by one. And when the date comes, you make an effort to communicate. Now, compare this to my Facebook experience. Every year, tens of messages wishing me a happy birthday. Feels good, kinda. Last year, I quit Facebook some months before my birthday. The the day came, and I got exactly zero messages. Where did my friends go?

Were the previous messages worth anything?

Re: Show HN: I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people

#168

Post by npteljes »

fastball wrote: post #75
brushfoot wrote: post #68

Yuck. If interacting with me is such a chore that someone has to automate it, I'd rather not hear from them. People don't want to be your duties. They want to be your pleasures. This changes messages from "I felt like talking to you" to "my scheduled trigger fired; please start a conversation so I can check you off my checklist." If I found out someone were using this to communicate with me, I'd frankly cut them out…

I feel like you're conflating the friction of starting a conversation with the friction of continuing one, which can be very different things.

I empathize with this point. But I don't know if the app would really work as a solution - maybe as long as the other party doesn't realize it. In media there's a trope where the relationship began as a joke, a prank, a dare, or something like that, but then the feelings realize and the relationship becomes real. That works until the genuine one realizes that the initial intent was fake, and that ruins the whole thing. While this is a trope, I think it illustrates well how people think about things like this, and why this kind of app is not productive in the end.

It's another case, maybe, if one writes an app for themselves. That, if it ever comes to light, can translate to a genuine effort, if the other party has enough empathy. But using someone else's app for this, to me, would just look lazy and/or fake.

Re: Show HN: I’m an introvert – made an app to help maintain connections with people

#169

Post by afbpinheiro »

binkHN wrote: post #119
fouc wrote: post #106

Is the link broken or app is down? It redirects to https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.mtc.ga And shows "We're sorry, the requested URL was not found on this server."

I'm sorry, but the app is currently in beta and limited to 88 countries/regions to better support this. Please let me know what country you are in so that I may rectify this.

Can you make it available to Portugal? I would love to give it a try
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