Facebook Tweaks its News Feed: Don't Panic

Inhale.

Updates to the Facebook page layout have proved that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Every time the social media platform tweaks its interface, everyone and their grandmother starts seeing red—and not because they have more notifications.

The most recent changes are to the News feed, and they’re for the best.

Exhale.

 According to an article in the Irish Examiner, Facebook’s newest changes are entirely aimed at improving the overall user experience, and there will be no noticeable changes to the actual page layout.

For starters, the News Feed will begin to place updates from friends higher up on the page. Important updates, such as photos, videos, links and status updates from close friends that users regularly interact with will generally pop up at the top of the feed, while the “junk” content gets shuffled toward the bottom. Users will therefore see the updates that matter to them each time they arrive at the page or open the mobile app.

Another change is that fewer updates about friends commenting or liking other posts will be placed lower in the feed. Once the user shows interest by liking or commenting on the post, future activity will show higher on the News Feed. Facebook is also easing up on restrictions that prevent multiple posts from a single source from showing on the News Feed.

Because Facebook’s content is mostly driven by who the user chooses to befriend and which pages he or she “likes,” the platform is fairly personalized as it is. Nevertheless, the idea that social media only shows us what we want to see is an assumption, and one that the most recent changes to the News Feed is aimed at addressing.

That’s not to say that Facebook won’t completely alter its interface at some point and basically tell its community of millions to suck it up and deal.

But for the time being at least, Zuckerberg’s got your back.