Facebook is constantly tweaking its News Feed algorithm, trying to find the best possible way to display content that users want to see and engage with.
The companies latest move is to measure how long a user looks at posts, images and comments in their news feed, with the idea being that if a user takes longer to look at certain content, they are likely interested in that content.
"From this research, we learned that in many cases, just because someone didn't like, comment or share a story in their News Feed doesn't mean it wasn't meaningful to them," said the company in a blog post. "There are times when, for example, people want to see information about a serious current event, but don't necessarily want to like or comment on it."
The algorithm will not just find out what a user likes, but it will also discover what a user doesn't like. If a user quickly scrolls past certain content, it is likely that they're not interested in it.
It will certainly be interesting to see how this affects what a user sees on their News Feed. Until now, Facebook has been basing the News Feed off what a user likes, shares and comments on. These are things that require a level of participation from the user. Simply seeing how long a user spends on a certain post is far more passive.
Of course, it's not as simple as just seeing how long a user takes to scroll past content. As the company mentions in its blog post, "some people may spend 10 seconds on a story because they really enjoy it, while others may spend 10 seconds on a story because they have a slow Internet connection." Because of this, to judge relevance the algorithm will take into account how long a user spends on other content, basing its measurements by comparing posts against how long a user spent on other posts.
While some social media managers might see this as a way to create higher engagement with their posts through things like long GIFs, Facebook says that Pages should not expect to see a significant change.
The move is the latest by Facebook to try to make its network more interesting for users and entice them to spend longer on the website. This is becoming increasingly important for the company, as its user base is aging and some are ceasing to use Facebook, preferring to turn to other social media networks.
The new algorithm will begin rolling out to users in the coming weeks.
