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There’s been a lot of rhetoric about Facebook and Instagram changing if you’re an active user. You may have already noticed for yourself. Since the early 2000s, Facebook has been a social network, hasn’t it? It was initially developed as a social network that connects friends and family members, among other things. You’re aware of the procedure. Nowadays, you can socially connect with friends and acquaintances via Facebook status. That may be going, far, far away. Instead, you’ve probably noticed in recent weeks that a new algorithm has motivated a lot of users to discover Meta, the company behind several popular apps, including Facebook and Instagram. There has been a significant amount of hype around the algorithm and user experience recently. As opposed to seeing what your friends are up to when you open the app, you’ll be greeted by a home screen full of the company’s fresh entertaining content.
Cat memes and cat videos are available, but not actual friends. Beyond the home page, any publicly shared video on Facebook will automatically become a video reel if it is shorter than fifteen minutes. Photos, which are usually from Instagram, which is owned by Meta, are doing well on that platform, so Facebook wants a piece. That being said, video appears to be the future for social networking sites. Photos from the early 2000s are oh so nostalgic. You can see it in Facebook and Instagram, which are both heavily pushing videos and addictive feed of video content. The platforms are emulating the same people. It’s impossible to deny it. Look at any of the changes to both Facebook and Instagram. In 2016, Tiktok exploded onto the social media scene and its revenue increased by over 140 percent in 2020. Meta appears to want a piece of that pie.
The Tiktok bread and butter feed is for you, a scrolling algorithm that keeps people browsing for hours. Previously, I assumed that Facebook was not addictive, however, it wants to join the party. There was a lot of buzz about Facebook and Instagram’s upcoming changes, and social media users and journalists had a lot to say. Some were more tongue in cheek than others. This is a video created by DH Tummie that offers some funny observations. “We’re keeping everything you enjoy while introducing new ways to waste your time. Ads for couches you can’t afford and shirts you don’t like are coming. That’s for products you’ve been vocal about for the past two days. Only things we’re altering are the things you dislike. Your family, for example.”
So the question remains. Can Facebook and Instagram ever be TikTok? The folks over at Meta certainly seem to be trying to make that happen. We’ll have to wait and see how that plays out. In the meantime, Facebook users get ready for a lot more cat videos.
What do you think about Meta’s new news feed video algorithms? Let us know down in the comments.
