Someone saying your name

Pocket edition. This is a shorter version of a longer article; you can read the full edition when you have more time.

You log in after three weeks away and someone types your name and a "hey, you're back". It took two seconds and it changes your afternoon. It's worth understanding why, because it's the cheapest thing a community can do and also the first thing to get automated.

The psychologists Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary described the need to belong in 1995, and pointed out something counter-intuitive: we're extremely quick at detecting signs of whether we're accepted or ignored. It doesn't take a conversation; a signal is enough.

A name is the cheapest signal there is. And that's where the trap lies: a signal only means something if it might not have been sent. That's why "Welcome, player!" achieves the opposite of a real greeting. It isn't a poor greeting: it's the automatic proof that nobody looked.

Nobody stays somewhere because they're greeted. But plenty of people leave a place where they're never named.