So, Facebook is noticing how people link more to sites and news, and post less about themselves. I definitely fall into that category of users. Why? It's simple. Facebook doesn't really encourage socializing. They encourage information sharing and information consumption. They further seem to give information from advertisers and actual users roughly the same priority. If a tech news site I follow posts a story that seems to be bought by some brand (a trend I have definitely noticed lately), the chance of it appearing seems to be roughly the same as a status update from a friend. If I follow a company's "page", a large bulk of what they post will be advertisments. So... There's a lot of attention grabbing ads or covert ads, these of course with clickbait titles, to penetrate for any normal guy who wants to enter the fray.
I think Facebook has realized this problem a long time ago, and that is why they provide these algorithm curated timelines to their users, just so people won't be overwhelmed? And I guess then, in the end, it is about what the algorithm does, and ultimately what Facebook wants it to do, in extension what they want to be. Right now they have chosen to be a 50/50 mix of ads/status updates, so in order to penetrate the ads that are attention grabbing by design, it is easiest to do so with memes and easily digestible jokes, things like that, things also attention grabbing by design.
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So, Facebook is noticing how people link more to sites and news, and post less about themselves. I definitely fall into that category of users. Why? It's simple. Facebook doesn't really encourage socializing. They encourage information sharing and information consumption. They further seem to give information from advertisers and actual users roughly the same priority. If a tech news site I follow posts a story that seems to be bought by some brand (a trend I have definitely noticed lately), the chance of it appearing seems to be roughly the same as a status update from a friend. If I follow a company's "page", a large bulk of what they post will be advertisments. So... There's a lot of attention grabbing ads or covert ads, these of course with clickbait titles, to penetrate for any normal guy who wants to enter the fray.
I think Facebook has realized this problem a long time ago, and that is why they provide these algorithm curated timelines to their users, just so people won't be overwhelmed? And I guess then, in the end, it is about what the algorithm does, and ultimately what Facebook wants it to do, in extension what they want to be. Right now they have chosen to be a 50/50 mix of ads/status updates, so in order to penetrate the ads that are attention grabbing by design, it is easiest to do so with memes and easily digestible jokes, things like that, things also attention grabbing by design.