> Search results in reverse chronological order is Twitter's killer feature but, bafflingly, it seems like they've been going out of thier way to prevent that for years now, especially on mobile. Why?
The engagement metrics have got to be better with Home. It makes sense, since the whole idea of an algorithmic timeline is to take the stuff the company knows is getting a reaction and feed it to more people.
Personally I think this is a great example of how engagement metrics mislead companies. The numbers go up, but it fundamentally changes the nature of the experience.
When you're on a reverse-chron timeline you have a sense of people's lives in real time and can have conversations. You only see people you have chosen to follow, so you recognize people and get a sense of their personality. A lot of the content is fairly banal, which gives an (accurate) sense that life for most people is kind of calm and mildly interesting.
When you're on an algorithmic timeline, you're seeing content that is really likely to get a reaction--that usually means it has a lot of emotion tied up in it: outrage, anger, sadness, humor, etc.
But it's also content that is old and choked with replies. So you can't have a normal conversation around it; there are too many people acting too emotionally. And you're seeing content from more people you don't follow--Twitter's Home timeline brings in a higher percentage of tweets that your follows have liked or replied to.
So if your timeline is filled with this kind of content, it creates the (inaccurate) impression that life is full of really extreme moments and amped-up strangers!
I can almost always tell when Twitter has switched me back to home. Suddenly I realize I'm feeling more angry, and the numbers on most of the tweets are bigger. I also see more tweets from people I don't recognize. It's like opening my kitchen door and suddenly finding a loud restaurant with spicy food in my house.