Assignment 2: "Like Everything"

I have to admit something at the outset: I don't use Facebook all that much. In fact, this week was the most I've used Facebook in half a year or more, so my results may be different. One other thing: I wanted to find the tipping point that I mentioned in an earlier article, so I changed the parameters a little. I formulated the hypothesis that the writer of "I liked everything" had achieved his results because he liked ads (according to the article, 8 at a time), leading to his "unfriendly" wall.

What I found was... exactly that. There were definitely ads there, but they took up 20% or less of the space, roughly the recommended split for social media anyway. Every time I scrolled, I found an interesting story. When reading the article for the first time, I wrote  "Facebook's like doesn't mean "like": it should be relabeled "see weird stuff kind of but not really related to"... but I guess they can't fit that on one line." 

In continuing my study, it seemed to do that, more or less. I observed that certain friends who posted more (and since I liked everything, therefore had more likes) would show up almost every time, whereas friends who only posted occasionally, only showed up occasionally. On the whole, however, this was an almost infinitesimal correlation. In fact, several times I switched between my news feed as shown, and "newest posts" and there was very little difference. 

This leads me to conclude that Facebook has two Tipping Points of becoming a negative experience. The first is the obvious one: like too many ads, and they take over everything. The second one is more subtle: if you spend a significant amount of time on it, you may end up accidentally curating your content in the wrong direction. Both are equally bad, but there can be a solution: don't use Facebook that much. Works for me.