Facebook. Freakin’ Facebook. It’s a love/hate website, that’s for sure. It’s fun to keep up with your friends, see your old schoolmates’ babies, check out your co-workers Spotify picks, hand out party invites, RSVP to same…it’s a daily ritual that many of us enjoy. Mostly.
But Facebook has a habit of inventing new ways to mess with your information, from labyrinthine and sketchy privacy policies, unsightly “tickers,” and continually re-arranging or hiding the features just as we’ve gotten accustomed to the most recent stupid changes.
The most recent indignation, about which people are STILL bitching two months later, was the introduction of some sort of new algorithm which ultimately hides posts from friends you haven’t interacted with much, and which sorts content not by a chronological timeline, as one would expect, but by some sort of popularity ranking that has many of us missing out on fun, interesting, or exciting posts from people we actually DO want to read, even if we don’t comment or “like” all of their stuff, all the time. It also penalises users like myself, who don’t check in on Facebook except for once or twice a day, and therefore end up getting “behind” on everyone’s news.
So, I have asked around and gotten suggestions on how to manipulate my feed, and the most satisfying fix so far is as follows: you create a customized list of everyone you want to hear from. In my case, that’s pretty much everyone on my Friends list (I don’t friend people I don’t like!). When you switch to viewing the custom list, it shows each member’s posts, in the order in which they posted them. Voila! Chronological posting, as nature and the clock intended it.
Click on any image to enlarge it. You know the drill, Internetians.
Step 1: Create a list
The option for creating lists will be in your left hand sidebar.
2. Name your list
What it says on the tin.
3. Add Friends – the crucial element:
Once you click on the above, it will give you a pictorial listing of your entire catalogue of friends. Go on and click everyone you ever want to hear from again, ever. It may take ages if you have friended every person you have ever met. If, however, you are slightly curmudgeonly, it may take no more than a minute or two:
Alphabetical friendlies!
While you are at it, you can also add pages or groups that you want to see news from in your customized list feed:
The little drop-down menu in the upper left hand side of this box toggles between a list of your friends and a list of your pages.
4. ENJOY your new Facebook feed that makes sense, that presents your friends’ posts in the order in which they are posted, which, in short, doesn’t suck at all, not even a little bit.
Hope this helps. Happy Facebooking!