Facebook has found another way to frustrate users who just want to see the most recent thing friends, family and their favorite media outlets have posted on the social network. There are more changes coming to the News Feed and what Facebook considers a “top story” for you.
In a blog post on Friday, Facebook software engineers Ansha Yu and Sami Tas said that what shows up on your News Feed will now be determined by how much time you spend looking at posts. Yes, Facebook is keeping you on a timer now and they think that if you spend time looking at something, you want to see more of it.
Previously, what showed up in your News Feed was based on what your friends liked or commented on, or what your close friends have posted. So, what didn’t get commented on did not necessarily show up in your News Feed, unless you went through the trouble of organizing your feed by “Most Recent.” But Facebook knows that some important news stories might not get commented on or even liked. Those stories will now show up if people spend time viewing it in your news feed.
“Some people may spend ten seconds on a story because they really enjoy it, while others may spend ten seconds on a story because they have a slow internet connection,” Yu and Tas wrote. “We’ve discovered that if people spend significantly more time on a particular story in News Feed than the majority of other stories they look at, this is a good sign that content was relevant to them.”
Here’s an example: Your sister posts pictures of her wedding, filled with text about the event. You spend time reading the comments and flipping through pictures, but you don’t want to add a comment or like a picture. Since Facebook timed you, Facebook can determine that you still want to see pictures your sister posts. So, those pictures will now show up in your Feed more often.
The change will start rolling out over the next few weeks.
As Mashable, notes, this is just the latest change Facebook’s News Feed has undergone. One of the biggest changes came in April, when the News Feed algorithm began showing more posts from friends than posts from Pages.
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