Facebook's Hot Streak Continues - Study Says New Algorithm Change Designed To "Bring People Closer Together" Is Making Everyone Depressed and Miserable
Credit Getty Images – The Asahi Shimbun / Contributor
NY POST - Facebook’s attempts to bring “people closer together” is actually completely misfiring and having completely the opposite effect.
The social networking site’s boss Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to its news feed that relegated posts from media sites in favor of news and updates from friends.
He said the aim was to “make time on Facebook time well spent” by shifting the focus from brands to community.
But now a new study has indicated that those changes have actually made users miserable.
The findings highlighted that the more “social” elements a service has, the more likely it will put users in a bad mood.
Oh you think I’m being sarcastic with that headline?
Oh no no no.
Nothing sells better than depression right now. Seriously this is EXACTLY what Facebook was when it first started, back in the golden days.
It has been suggested that this is because people compare themselves with their friends and peers and look at what they are missing out on.
Duh. There was no better outlet to see a flood of pictures and status updates of all the people you went to school with about how successful they are now, how happy, how they’re traveling all over the world, oh look they’re in Bali now, look at that rock on her finger, click click click, oh he’s in wealth management and makes 500K a year, what an amazing committed relationship they’re in *dumps more Ben and Jerry’s into dish because it makes you feel better about eating the entire pint sitting alone on your couch while your Craigslist roommate that you got stuck with because you can’t afford rent and cable on your own gets fucked loudly in the next room by 6th guy she brought home this week*.
And folks, it’s working like a charm.
The research was carried out by New York-based research firm Ypulse after it was commissioned by image-sharing site Imgur following Facebook’s algorithm change.
The firm asked 2,100 13-to-35-year-olds in the US how they felt after using popular digital-media services.
These included Netflix, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Spotify, Pinterest and Snapchat.
Less than one in three users felt better after using Facebook but more than half felt better after using Netflix and Spotify.
Just under half – 44 percent – said they felt better after visiting Instagram while only 36 percent responded positively after using Twitter.
Only 29 percent of Facebook users said they felt better after using the site and 16 percent reported feeling unhappy.
Everybody’s fucking miserable, just like we used to be.
Yeah the algorithm change sucks for Barstool and other publishers but whatever. There’s no better motivator to improve your life than seeing your arch enemies from high school getting married in the South of France. It’ll be better for humanity in the long run.
PS,
If Facebook cared about their customers they’d send more traffic our way, just saying.
But when an internet site focuses on things like entertainment and aspects of discovery – such as news providers – this makes the user feel happier.
PPS,
[via The NY Post]