I’m not seeing my friends’ posts on Facebook anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m seeing a lot of their activities, their comments, their likes, but I’m not seeing their actual posts on my news feed. I don’t know why. Then again, on a good day my care less factor when it comes to Facebook ranges between 9 and 10. So, yeah, I guess I’ll tell you a bit about my experience with the platform for Freedom Friday and hopefully I’ll make some sense of this predicament.

The news feed is a good place to start. I loved Facebook a few years ago. I could pop in, check to see how my friends were doing and if I found anything they had written interesting, I’d interact with them like a cool drop-in or social. I loved the photos they shared and the cute stories attached to the memory.
I don’t see any of that now. My news feed has become a mishmash of so-and-so commented on this and so-and-so liked that. It’s become more of a reporting system for anyone curious to see what their friends are into. I liken the current environment to someone walking through our backyard and peeking through our window to spy on who we’re hanging with. The whole idea has shifted from seeing what others are posting to what others are commenting on and liking. I’m not sure when it changed, but lately I’ve been trying to bring back the old news feed in order to not feel so much as a Peeping Tom than anything else.

First order of business was playing around with the “Follow” button. I notice when I unfollow someone on Facebook, I don’t see anything of theirs on my news feed. No likes. No comments. Nothing. That sort of defeats the purpose of wanting to only see their posts. Next, I worked through all my friends’ walls to like and comment on things I found interesting much like I would have as if the posts had appeared on my news feed. Facebook took my actions to indicate I enjoyed following those friends and shortly thereafter, my news feed once again became a hodgepodge of nonsense. You got it. Facebook enabled the “Follow” button for my friends’ activities and thought I’d appreciate knowing what my friends commented on and liked. I was back to the very beginning.
For several days, I worked through the problem trying various combinations of “Follow” button and “Acquaintance” status changes as a way to achieve my goal of bringing back the old news feed. Nothing worked. No matter what I did, Facebook wanted to show me what my friends were doing through their kitchen windows as opposed to admiring their rose gardens out front.
Then, in the middle of dinner one night, a bright idea hit me. I say a bright idea because it was as if someone had flipped the switch in my brain and I could finally see the answer in front of me.
Lists. Yep. Lists.
Apparently, if I add all my friends to a list I can see their posts just like the good ol’ days. Well, guess what I did? Yep, I added all my friends to a list and I’m back to the way I like it—admiring the rose gardens at the front of my friends’ homes.
Facebook makes sense again.
Do I regret not going to my news feed to check out what my friends are commenting on and liking? Not really. I just want to know what they want me to know, not what Facebook thinks I should know.
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Have you had a similar experience with Facebook? What have you done about it? What is your experience with using Facebook? Do you like it?

