Honan intended this article for Facebook users who are also interested in the science behind their news feeds. Because it is on the website Wired, this article is meant to appeal to people who are interested in the other aspects of the website: technology, business, gaming, and design.
In this article, Honan discusses how algorithms used by Facebook affects what appears in the news feed. He conducted a personal experiment where he liked everything that appeared on his news feed. Rather quickly, his new feed became filled with posts from brands, posts from people left out. When it came to news sites, Honan noticed a trend. The posts were brief, two sentences explaining an event, followed by a query, inviting the reader to like the post. Additionally, as he went on liking things, the news related posts became more extreme. He could only continue this trend for two days before he got sick of all of the nonsense appearing before him.
Honan finds many aspects of the Facebook algorithms troubling. Instead of delivering anything close to unbiased news, Facebook delivers the news it believes we will agree with, or more importantly, click on. Other than news, the posts from sites like Buzzfeed became more and more ridiculous. In writing about this, Honan wants to inform Facebook users about how and why information is presented to them. It may be his hope that with this information, we can make the conscious choice to ignore the garbage and eventually it will no longer show up on our news feeds.
Before this article, I had noticed the very gimmicky nature of many Facebook posts are phrased. This is something that I find disgusting and annoying, and I was glad Honan mentioned it. I found this article fascinating, and it has changed the way I scroll through my Facebook feed. I find it interesting that the majority of updates on my news feed are from bands, since those are the posts I like and click on more. This article made me think about the reason I have a Facebook. The most important part of it is keeping up with the lives of those I don’t speak to on a regular basis. Although I may not “like” everything people post, I’m certainly interested in reading it. However, I also use Facebook to stay updated on bands. When a band posts a new song or a link to a tour, that is something I generally click on. As a result, my news feed becomes more and more filled up with bands. On the other hand, I’m wondering if a part of this is due to the fact that most of my friends do not post very much on Facebook, leading to their absence from my news feed.
Good job pointing out the way that Facebook algorithms lead away from the personal content the side specializes in. I also appreciated that you discussed the ways that non-personal content can be important for users as well, through the example of music fans like yourself using the site to keep track of bands.