The Devil Is in the Defaults

So I updated my LinkedIn profile this week to include my latest side project, Apropos of Nothing. Naturally, LinkedIn updated my network with the news. And, naturally, I got a bunch of congratulatory notes. Cool! There was just one problem…

“Congrats on your new role! I hope you’re doing well.” When I got this note, from someone I hadn’t spoken to in a while, I thought, “How nice of Josh to write me a note and wish me well.” And when I got another “Congrats on your new role. Hope you’re doing well.” And I thought, “how nice of James!” I guess I was feeling particularly naive that day, because it took several more of these “hope you’re doing well” notes before I realized that this must be copy that is pre-filled by LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has made it as easy as possible for users to “write” a note to a connection. All you have to do is hit submit and you’ve just said “congratulations” and — because you’re such a good person — you’ve also added “hope you’re doing well”. How nice! You’re swell!

Um, I don’t mean to be such a scrooge, but aren’t these auto-messages no better than the “like” action that users can already take? Well, actually they’re worse. I know that a “like” is a one-tap action, taken by someone who wished to acknowledge my update, but not say anything particular about it. The “hope you’re feeling well” messages, on the other hand… well, they deceived me. And once I figured out that I’d been conned, I didn’t feel so good.

So… a plea for LinkedIn and all other products: beyond simple verbs, such as “like” or “congrats” or “recommend”, don’t put words in our mouthes. Please don’t make it any easier for us to send vapid, standardized notes to each other. Yes, we users really should be responsible for our own messages and for our own laziness at not changing the default, but you know that we will almost always do the default action — that why you put it there!

Getting users to send messages to each other is likely a big win for the growth teams at LinkedIn — the more “personal” messages we send, the more LinkedIn’s viral growth loop accelerates — what harm do these messages do to LinkedIn’s brand? Worse, what effect might they have on our relationships with each other? Will I trust Josh a little bit less the next time he sends me a message? Will I inspect his messages more closely next time to make sure I’m not failing some basic Turing test?

I bet all of my LinkedIn connections really do hope I’m doing well, but being the recipient of all these automated bromides left me feeling empty and, as you can see, a bit cynical.

Hope you’re doing well!

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