News Feed Addicts

Earlier today I posed the following question to my Twitterati:



I immediately received a number of emphatic "YES!" responses. Everyone seemed equally annoyed -- and I think it's mostly because it's not something we all had actively noticed.

The Facebook News Feed has been almost subconsciously taunting us, showing us many of the same people over and over. I am sure it's part of their code to show us the updates from people with whom we interact the most, Friends 1, 2, and 3. But, what about when Friend 465 posts something important (um hello, engagement-graduation-job-baby-move), and we never see it?

Side rant: Hopefully Friends 1, 2, and 3 would be letting me know about such big life changes in a more personal manner than through Facebook. Emily Post would totally agree. But for you, Friend 465, it's ok, I understand. Facebook is just way more efficient to spread the word to the fringe friends anyways :)

I honestly didn't notice this little phenom myself until I was going through and defriending some people (sorry, I am mean like that sometimes). While clicking through their pages to the Unfriend link, I saw that their pages were full of recent updates, none of which I had ever seen in my own feed! Well, that was strange. So I ranted on Twitter, but of course.

Much to my surprise, someone actually had a fix for this (Thanks Hydee!), and I couldn't wait to share it with you! Given the other responses, it seems like you all are probably (even if you hadn't realized it until now) sick of seeing the same people's stuff on your homepage. Well, here's how to fix it --

1) Go to the bottom of your News Feed homepage. Click "Edit Options."



(Did that get sneakily added in there sometime? I thought I knew all the important links on Facebook...)

2) You are probably set to the default "Number of Friends" of 250. If you are like me, that is only about a third, or even a quarter of, your total Facebook Friends! So up that number to your total.



And POOF! your feed should now be more robust. Thanks Facebook, for thinking I only care about that top percentage of friends with whom I interact. In reality, however, I like to use Facebook for the exact opposite purpose -- to keep up with those far-away or long-lost friends with whom I don't always get the chance to chat, but want to stay in the loop with anyways :)