I'm not sure, but I feel that the less I engage with Facebook the more trivial the notifications become - as though the threshold were being lowered to get me back on board.

So if I have no posts garnering likes / reactions, I start seeing "Susan is interested in an event near London!" and "Alan is now on Instagram!!" - until I begin posting again.

Yes. This recent thread and screenshot complained about 36 red notifications from Facebook instead of real human beings: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/6zjzge/n...

Facebook is diluting its red alert into meaningless nagging.

The worst is if you turn off notifications from Messenger, it flashes up the red number to tell you you need to turn them back on.

I found it very, very annoying at first... now it's just taught me to ignore the red numbers entirely.

Same problem at LinkedIn. Most notifications are "We've found someone you might know" or "We've found a job you might like".

Cry wolf, why don't you.

It's the same for me, but I'm sure they have all the analytics they need to know what increases engagement and what doesn't...