Meta Just Proved People Hate Chronological Feeds

Meta conducted an experiment where thousands of users were shown chronological feeds on Facebook and Instagram for three months. Users of the chronological feeds engaged less with the platforms and were more likely to use competitors like YouTube and TikTok. This suggests that users prefer algorithmically ranked feeds that show them more relevant content, even though some argue chronological feeds provide more transparency. While the experiment found that chronological feeds exposed users to more political and untrustworthy content, it did not significantly impact their political views or behaviors. The researchers note that a permanent switch to chronological feeds could produce different results, but this study provides only a glimpse into the issue.

I think this is bullshit. I exclusively scroll Lemmy in new mode. I scroll I see a post I already have seen. Then I leave. That doesn’t mean I hate it, I’m just done!

EuphoricPenguin22,
@EuphoricPenguin22@normalcity.life avatar

I forgot: are Lemmy’s active and hot sorts chronological? They’re pretty decent, but I do find stale content does get stuck on one that isn’t there on the other.

nothacking,

Facebook want enraged users, enraged users are engaged users. They don’t care about mental health or enjoyment, just how long you stay on Facebook.

Butters,
@Butters@lemmywinks.com avatar

Company study confirms what company wants you to believe. More at 11.

u_tamtam,
@u_tamtam@programming.dev avatar

Cool! Even they did prove anything there, I would prefer no longer to be considered them as “People” if that lets me keep using my perfectly ordered, labeled and sequentially ordered RSS. My brain just has no time and interest for an infinite stream of haphazardly cooked up stuff.

wildeaboutoskar,
@wildeaboutoskar@beehaw.org avatar

I think there’s a time and a place for algorithmic feeds. When it comes to Facebook i personally think it makes sense to have a way of filtering the important things first, based on who you interact with. It’s a social network in the definitive sense; we care about some people more than others depending on where in the network they are. However we’ve seen how things go when Facebook use it with pages/news stories (which is really concerning).

For things like Twitter, I want chronological. It’s a real time platform based on sharing information across a larger audience. Its use in breaking news makes timing important. It’s largely gone to shit now because Musk, but in its heyday anyway.

Ideally there should always be a choice, or at least some transparency around how the algorithms work. That way everyone can choose what works for them based on how they use the platform.

notenoughbutter,

I’d like to interject for a moment and say,

this isn’t a test for what users like, this is a test for how users are addicted to the platform

algorithm provides content in a way that they become a consoomer and more often than not, we actually feel guilty and sad after an hour of scrolling and realising we wasted so much time (like post masturbation sadness)

NaoPb,

The actual problem is that they think they should just force one or the other on us. Give us a choice to sort our feed and we’ll figure out what we like best.

nous,

But then people can choose the option that does not have them scrolling for hours. Which means less time and less views on the platform. Why would they give you that option?

NaoPb,

Goes to show I am getting tired. Why didn’t I think of that. Ofcourse meta wants to keep you on their platform as long as possible. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

monsterpiece42,

ITT: tech people and power users struggle to understand that the masses use devices and services differently than they do.

Spellbind0127,
@Spellbind0127@mstdn.social avatar

@monsterpiece42 @trashhalo as much as we struggle to see how the masses use technology I also wonder how many tech people just don’t care how normal non-tech people use their devices and services.

HurlingDurling,

I agree, I don’t think it’s accurate to say engagement was less. If I want to see what is new with my friends and I can quickly see everything in just a few swipes instead of swiping w For hours to see if I can see something new it will cause me to spend less time on the platform, but I’ll enjoy it more because I can spend more time doing things with them in person.

StarServal,
@StarServal@kbin.social avatar

This is a non-issue. Provide the chronological feed and let people choose how they want to consume their content.

Excrubulent,
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

No but don’t you see the system is closed source and we choose how you consume it in a purely authoritarian manner and it could never be any other way.

This is a real dichotomy.

Dr_Cog,
@Dr_Cog@mander.xyz avatar

That would be great, but it would lead to people not being as engaged in the site: the entire point of this corporate-sponsored research

BitOneZero,
@BitOneZero@beehaw.org avatar

I think this is bullshit.

I think it is exactly how people are behaving. And I can even recall witnessing many people first hand who flip a newspaper to the sports section. Never learning anything about science news, medical news, unless it’s some kind of social column about a diet.

People wanting to cut out and block things they don’t want to read in a newspaper is what I consider the “default behavior” of most of humanity. No surprise they do not care about the news their friends share. An intelligent computer system that filters out (based on topic/content study) what they don’t want to see before-hand is always going to be popular with such people.

“One of the effects of living with electric information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload. There’s always more than you can cope with.” — Marshall McLuhan.

Evergreen5970, (edited )

Accidentally deleted my comment instead of saving edits. Here it is again.

I favor OP’s perspective, but that’s because I sub to/follow the stuff I find interesting so I can ignore everything else. I already “made” my own algorithm by only following the stuff I care about, now show it to me chronologically instead of according to your algorithm (because honestly, either your algorithm is optimized for engagement and shows tons of ragebait because it gets engagement and it gets me mad, or it’s actually good and I spend more time online than I wanted to and feel bad. Yes, I know not being able to just cut myself off is a problem, but there’s something to be said for engineering addictive algorithms too).

My experience with algorithms and “for you” is algorithms shoving ragebait in my face and me not always being able to resist clicking. Content delivery algorithms have not been good to me, which heavily influences my view.

lloram239,

Classic false dilemma. It was never about “algorithm vs chronological”. The problem is the lack of options. Having algorithmic magic be the only way to browse content is the issue. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exits or even that it shouldn’t be the default. There should just me more other ways that the user can switch too.

I have that issue with Youtube, which can be really good at recommending obscure videos with a couple of hundred views that are exactly about the topic you are looking for. But there is no way for me to actively select the topic that the recommendation machine recommends, it’s all based and watch history can very easily get screwed up when you watch the wrong videos. Worse yet, it can’t handle multiple topics at once, so one topic will naturally end up suppressing the other. The workaround for that is to run multiple browser profiles, train each of them on a topic and than be very careful what video you watch with what profile. But that’s frankly stupid, such functionality should be in the UI. Youtube has a topic-bar at the top which looks like it might help, but it’s far to unspecific to be useful, something like “Gaming” isn’t one topic, it’s thousands of topics bundled into one, the recommendation algorithm understands each of the thousand topics individually, the UI does not.

Give users choice.

updawg,

Youtube has a topic-bar at the top which looks like it might help

One annoying thing is that the topic bar isn’t always there, the UI isn’t consistent and things show up on the page when YouTube feels like it.

nous,

The algorithm is designed to keep you on the platform with endless feeds of content you might click on. And the site is designed to force you towards the algorithm as much as possible. They don’t want to give you choice about how you might want to view content, they just want you to stay on the platform.

Personally I like just putting all the new content from my subscription that I am interested in, in a watch list then playing through that list and leave when I am done. But youtube is making that workflow harder and harder. Just recently they moved the add to watch later button from the hover on the video to a submenu, resulting in a lot more clicks to do what I used to. And it is now very hard to actually manage your subscriptions in bulk.

GadgeteerZA,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

I’m sorry, but those “suggestions” sound wrong - a chronological feed exposes users to untrustworthy content. The point is an algorithmic feed is unknown manipulation UNLESS the algorithm is known and published. Engaging less is also NOT a bad thing at all, unless you are the platform itself. The inference is that an algorithm will expose users to less political and untrustworthy content? Well, certainly not if the platform wants to generate continuous engagement through provocation and the creation of outrage.

But OK, it is an experiment by Meta, so let’s just leave it at that.

SpamCamel,

We investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong.

But in all seriousness, this feels like the chronological feed given to users was just a straw man intended to make their algorithm look better. Also the claim in the article that Meta’s algorithm does not impact users politics is completely ridiculous and not at all supported by a study like this.

Elbrond,
@Elbrond@feddit.nl avatar

I think the conclusion that people hate chronological feeds is not a very strong conclusion. People also hate some algorithmic feeds, especially when it’s full of crap and there is no chronology anymore. An ideal situation would be if you could choose both and also if you could influence the algorithm.

AngularAloe,

“Spend less time once on” is different than “hate”. I hated FB’s feed so much that I was reluctant to get on in the first place, a metric completely different from how long I would spend once I DID open it.

corsicanguppy,

If you’re suggesting a Chrono feed is more efficient and you spend less time on because all the news has been consumed, well, then, I totally agree.

I admit I still jump on Facebook. I exclusively use a bookmark that still (now mostly) forces a chronological feed order.

trk,
@trk@aussie.zone avatar

I exclusively use a bookmark that still (now mostly) forces a chronological feed order.

www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr

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