Both of these things are driving me to use the app less.
I'm realizing that Facebook does two things builds a social network and then strip mines it off all value.
I mean, I'm sure there's an ostensible reason. Maybe there's metrics that show it increases engagement (which I'd believe, since it kindof fits with the studies that say an uncertain reward is more addictive than completely predictable reward). Maybe adding a special sauce ML algorithm to the feed generation process lets a product manager add a bullet point to their resume and yearly review.
But I kindof think the reason has to be something that is not going to be particularly user driven or otherwise reflect well on FB, because as far as I can tell most users who are conscious about it reaaaally would like to be able to at least set a setting that would give them a strict chronological feed. And yet, that's never an option, and FB never even seems to talk about reasons why they know their way is totally awesome.
I wonder how much of those metrics are false positives due to people scrolling more in frustration to find the user updates that they are missing
"Hey, did you see what $mutual_friend has posted on Facebook this morning?"
Cue 15 minutes of scrolling past two-weeks-old posts
Cue 15 more minutes of scrolling before realising they're two months back because they missed the actual post, because Facebook does not show every update by default
I've noticed this as well, and it appears to have gotten more pronounced in the last month or so.
I don't understand why this isn't a setting that users can toggle. "Show feed strict in linear order" or something like that.
It's hidden under News -> Most Recent
EDIT: Oh wait, Instagram. No idea what to do there, sorry.
On the plus side, Facebook has now taught me (twice!) that they (or any other "social media" company) can't be trusted. Now I'm just deciding whether I should give up social media altogether. I already deleted my Facebook since it became completely useless over the past few years (friends don't post, I don't see their posts when they do, notifications are useless and diluted), I'm considering deleting my instagram (far, far, far too many ads; friends don't post as much)... is it worth it to try to build out a presence on Mastodon? Or is that doomed, too?
They just announced they're (after years of holding the line) opening up the API for publishing photos, so it'll be a spammy feed of corporate stuff very soon.
On the other hand, it’s also showing me advertisements for watches. I have no idea why, because I hate wearing watches and I’ve definitely never googled for watches before.
That, or their model has found a correlation between liking chairs, plants, and watches but doesn't account for your unusual distaste for watches. Take heart, facebook doesn't know you well enough to convince you to hand over your wallet to their customers (yet).
The addition of stories does make it feel busier though. I'm enjoying my time on it much less than I used to. Even after muting stories from people whose stories I wasn't interested in watching.
While there are talented photographers on Instagram, the app is really poor as a way to appreciate photography (can't zoom, no iPad app to better view content) and it's also poor as a community, favouring instead over-consumption and poor engagement (low quality comments, if any).
Then there are the shenanigans that game user engagement, like delaying likes to force people to check the app more often or nagging me to enable notifications every single time I open the app.
It has become little more than an ad-delivery platform.