Part of the reason that I, personally, hate algorithmic feeds is precisely because I end up spending more time staring at them. With a chronological feed, as soon as I see a post I've seen before[1], it's very easy for me to put down the phone and get back to work (or, if I'm not on the clock, otherwise find a way to spend my time which is actually enjoyable and rewarding). Whereas with an algorithmic feed, I find it very hard to stop scrolling, even when I see a repeat post or decide that my time would be better spent elsewhere.
So, I have no doubt that Facebook's usage metrics are substantially worse with a chronological feed: my own experience is that they are wildly more addictive for me, and I see no reason to believe that I'm unique in that regard.
[1] And even before that point, it seems to be easier to spend less time staring at the social media website, although that's more of a vague feeling I have without anything quantitative to back it up.
One of the biggest frustrations I had with Twitter is those periodic decisions to swap my feed back to algorithmic. I would always find myself staring at a tweet I had seen before but which was hugely popular, or at something from some celeb I'm supposed to give a shit about.
It is extremely unfair to conclude "people spent more time looking at this, so they must have enjoyed it more!" When you've designed something to generate infinite interesting new stuff for people to look at
The Science journal article has a lot of information if you click through.
I don’t see in the results section any conclusion that users “hate” chronological feeds.
Their results say things like less engagement and clicks, less time spent in app etc.
How did they measure whether people or hated the change? I don’t think they did.
I personally think chronological is a way better system and Meta et al would do whatever they could to disprove this so they can control the feed with manipulation.
I put a 10-digit padlock on the fridge for a week, told my family the combination, then took it off.
According to engagement and usage metrics, my family loves the padlock, and hated it when I remove it! Refrigerator engagement went from 57 seconds down to 3 after the padlock went away!
The fact that chronological feeds drive less user activity than ML-based ranking engines isn't an interesting result. Presumably the ranking algorithms have access to timestamps and would have just learned to order posts by time if that maximized engagement.
Of course, more activity doesn't mean your user is actually having a better experience. We have all seen social media addicts who spend hours and hours doomscrolling yet are miserable the entire time. Users spending less time on Meta didn't mean they "hate" the feed, from what I've seen, people who actually enjoy social media are those who spent very little time on it.
This article brings up a good point, which is that in an environment where all the big players are willing to abuse their users, those who do try to make their platform less addictive will just end up losing their users to those who don't. The only real solution is industry wide regulation.
X (formerly Twitter) has two sorts of feeds that are chosen.
1. "Following", which is chronological.
2. "For you", which is algorithmic.
For those whose motivation is tracking news events, the chronological view is most important. Yesterday's news may not matter for example.
Otherwise the algorithmic feed is awesome. In my case I want Ukraine news and only the Western side presented. The algorithmic feed gives me interesting posts
from accounts that I do not necessarily follow, and omits the Russian point of view - which is perfect.
In other news, Coca-Cola revisits original recipe and it turns out 99% of customers love cocaine-infused cola drinks over alternatives. Cocaine cola strengthens cola drink brand loyalty by 1023%.
If you don’t care about externalities (and who does!), drug dealers are our truest friends, the free market’s purest practitioners, and libertarian fighters for your freedoms to the core.
So, I have no doubt that Facebook's usage metrics are substantially worse with a chronological feed: my own experience is that they are wildly more addictive for me, and I see no reason to believe that I'm unique in that regard.
[1] And even before that point, it seems to be easier to spend less time staring at the social media website, although that's more of a vague feeling I have without anything quantitative to back it up.