Why does WeChat Only Support the Ability to Withdraw Messages Within 2 Minutes?
How is the Retraction Achieved
In WeChat chat, I believe that many computer friends have encountered because of hand stump sent the wrong message, can be said to be very awkward. The good news is that WeChat has a "retracting" feature, which allows us to retract a message when we find it is wrong or sent to the wrong person to avoid misunderstanding and embarrassment. When A phone sends A message to B phone, it will generate A unique ID on its WeChat and attach this ID to the message to be sent. After the phone receives the message, it will store the ID and display the message. When A mobile phone withdraws A message, it will attach the ID of the message to the withdrawal instruction. When B mobile phone receives the withdrawal instruction, it will use the ID to find the corresponding message in its own database, and then display the withdrawal effect.
What is the Basis for the Withdrawal Time limit
Why 2 minutes? According to big data analysis, WeChat team believes that 2 minutes is the average time for receiving and reading a message, and the withdrawal time is within 2 minutes, which can keep the context intact to the greatest extent and give people a stable user experience. If it is less than two minutes, the sender may not have time to realize the message was wrong and the time limit for retracting may have passed. If it is more than 2 minutes, there is a high probability that the receiver has already seen the message, at which point there is no point in retracting the message. If the withdrawal time is unlimited, it means that users can withdraw any historical message, which will lead to incomplete context when we check the chat record, which greatly affects the integrity and experience of users' reading. At the same time, withdrawing messages that the recipient has read can easily make the relationship awkward and even cause unnecessary misunderstandings.
Why Should Text Prompt Appear after Retraction
Some netizens said that the withdrawal was meant to resolve the embarrassment, but WeChat also prompted "xx withdrew a message", this is not more embarrassing? First of all, the retracement is almost impossible to do without a trace. The moment we send the message, the other party will already see the full contents of the retracted message in the lock notification. Secondly, the design of internet-based products such as WeChat must guarantee the right to know of both the sender and the receiver. While giving the sender the right to withdraw, it is also necessary to let the receiver know the situation of the message being withdrawn, so as to avoid the bad experience of the receiver clicking into the chat interface but not seeing the message. Another netizen said, it would be better to design a "read" function, so that the sender can choose whether to withdraw according to the situation of the read, to better avoid embarrassment. On the flip side, if the other person has read it and we retract it, the other person knows we don't want him to see it, which makes it even more embarrassing for both of us. In addition, it is more embarrassing to read a message and not reply to it in time than to send a wrong message. From the recipient's point of view, we don't like to know whether we read it or not.
