It’s useless, annoying and can get passive aggressive. Tech Sunday points a finger at the Facebook poke.

Our every online action is fuelled by purpose – we buy and sell, work and play, make up and break up.

And if you just spent the last hour doodling around on Youtube, that was a well-earned time out from the kilometre-long spreadsheet you’ve been ruining your eyes on all morning.

So yes, every online action is designed to have a specific intention. Except for the Facebook poke button.

Just think about it. You get a poke from a friend, and you poke back. What does that exchange mean exactly? It could be a form of flirting, yet it is so open to interpretation that it can easily be misunderstood.

It could be a virtual nudge to a friend who fell asleep while you were chatting – but then, why should you go for such a rude awakening? You see, there’s no real purpose to it – it’s a signifier with no signified.

Poking people is annoying, especially if you do it repeatedly. It’s like clearing your throat and looking at your watch in a doctor’s waiting room. Or like tugging at someone’s ponytail.

You do it once, and you have all the attention you want. You do it twice, and you need to come up with a justification, and fast. You do it three times, and things get passive aggressive.

You don’t like it when people poke you in real life, while waiting for the bus, so why should you perform an online poke? As much as you could get arrested for giving someone a real poke, you can end up behind bars for poking someone on Facebook – just ask Shannon D. Jackson from Hendersonville, Tennessee, who was accused of violating a protective order by poking a woman on Facebook.

May that be a lesson to all pokers.