Facebook's News Feed has gone through a number of changes over the years, with the company attempting to streamline the best way for users to visualize the content they care most about right at the top of the social media site. Today, Facebook hopes to be one step closer to that goal, with the roll out of a new "See First" option to its iOS app that will allow users to choose up to 30 people or fan pages that will automatically appear at the top of their News Feed every time they check the site (via Re/code).

Facebook_news_feed_screenshots_2.0

Photo via The Verge

As Re/code reports, Facebook promises that any pages or people added to a user's See First list won't be used to target customers with ads. In fact, Facebook hopes that the more streamlined experience will encourage users to visit the site more often, and perhaps counterbalance the fact that users may generate less ad income for the company thanks to not needing to scroll through the News Feed for as long anymore.

“It sounds counterintuitive, but the worse we do on rankings, the more we make people try and scroll through, the more likely they are to just go away,” a company spokesperson told Re/code. “If we show you the stuff you really really want first, you’ll come back more often.”

The update will present users with possible suggestions for following pages and people when initially beginning the process to set-up a See First list, and also allow users to unfollow friends and pages from within the app, which you could only do on the web in the past. The update for Facebook [Direct Link] will begin rolling out throughout the day today, with the company promising the same features will be coming to Android and the web sometime soon.

Top Rated Comments

TonyC28 Avatar
127 months ago
I'm kind of sick of Facebook these days, but if they would give me the option to permanently set my News Feed to simply appear in chronological order that would be great.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bushido Avatar
127 months ago
can they just stop with all this filter crap? just show everything in line of the news feed. one of the reasons i no longer use the app is cuz it always reverts back to the top news bs.

i dont know a single person who uses anything BUT the chronological order. who wants to see stuff from days ago mixed with current events
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nepalisherpa Avatar
127 months ago
What I want is a default option to view every post in a chronological order. Is it really difficult to provide this option?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chrfr Avatar
127 months ago
I'm kind of sick of Facebook these days, but if they would give me the option to permanently set my News Feed to simply appear in chronological order that would be great.
I agree, but even with that setting, Facebook still "curates" what you see in a seemingly random fashion.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ArtOfWarfare Avatar
127 months ago
Also, Facebook appears to have silently introduced a new mascot, seen in the screenshots in the article:

Crab with a tuft of blonde hair.

Crabs with blonde hair definitely makes me think of my friends. I'm glad they have this mascot now.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Dan DeWilde Avatar
127 months ago
The average user would see over 1500 posts per day if they showed you every update in order. You aren't going to go through all that. Instead they have been surfacing the stuff that's most relevant to you and the stuff you have shown that you like to see the most. Quit pretending you'd be interested in scrolling through all the Pages that aunt Ruth liked just to see your friend's videos.
As it stands, I currently see THE SAME updates multiple times/day because someone made a comment to it. Just show the status updates in chronological order based on the time they were originally POSTED, not based on the last time it was commented on. Its not that hard - that's how they used to do it until they tried to get all fancy which is when people started getting ticked off at FB.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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