Facebook is constantly looking for ways to refine the stream of posts it shows on your News Feed, and now it’s adding a new variable into the mix: the time you spend looking at posts.
The company’s researchers found that in several instances, a person may be interested in a post even if they didn’t like, comment or share the story. Sometimes people want to read about a current event or curious article without wanting to necessarily interact with it.
It’s not too hard to imagine how this could come to play. You might see an article on your feed about an opposing political view, so you might want to read it out of curiosity but not want to hit Like or Share.
Of course, this measure has its limitations too. Facebook points out that sometimes people could spend ten seconds reading something because they were interested, or it might just be because they’re on a super slow connection, so the algorithm will take into account how an view times compare to other posts seen by the same person.
The change has already started rolling out, expected to be completed in the coming weeks. And if you’re an admin for a business Page, Facebook says you shouldn’t worry: it doesn’t think overall distribution of posts will be significantly affected by the update.
Read next: Facebook study suggests a quarter of links you click on are against your own political views
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Image credit: Gil C / Shutterstock.com
➤ News Feed FYI: Taking Into Account Time Spent on Stories [Facebook]
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