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Home / New Zealand

Sonya Bateson: Everything on your Facebook feed is there for a reason

Sonya Bateson
By Sonya Bateson
Regional content leader, Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post·Bay of Plenty Times·
21 Apr, 2022 10:00 PM5 mins to read

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Even if you're just reading comments, Facebook has your attention, writes Sonya Bateson. Photo / Gettty Images

Even if you're just reading comments, Facebook has your attention, writes Sonya Bateson. Photo / Gettty Images

OPINION

This week, I logged into my Facebook account for the first time in more than a month.

Not for the joy of it, that's for sure. I curiously flicked through trying to find some photos a relative had told me they posted.

The first post I saw: A comic strip about going to the gym from a page I followed back in my uni days.

The second post: A message from a local cafe about holiday opening hours (closed, if you were curious).

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Third: A video labelled "Why it's impossible to put tracking microchips in Covid vaccines".

A few ads, a few more posts from businesses. A weather warning.

Someone giving away literal garbage on a community noticeboard (no one wants your broken stools, Jenny. Just take them to the dump).

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I went back and counted – 18 posts before there was something from any of my friends.

Where have all the real people gone?

The social media website on which we once shared photos of our children and sent happy birthday messages to people we haven't seen since high school has become something else entirely.

Now, we're more likely to see the latest take on Covid, people's opinions on what is happening in Ukraine, and screenshots of Elon Musk's latest tweets.

Anything to get us talking – and arguing.

An investigation by the Wall St Journal revealed a leaked internal Facebook report that its algorithms "exploit the human brain's attraction to divisiveness" and warned that if left unchecked, Facebook would feed users "more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention and increase time on the platform".

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen later came forward as the source of revelations and later claimed in testimony to the US Congress that the company was putting profit over people's safety.

However, Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said her claims were "just not true".

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"The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical. We make money from ads, and advertisers consistently tell us they don't want their ads next to harmful or angry content," he said in a blogpost.

In my experience, the more divisiveness you view, the more you're fed. If you "like" someone's meme or comment, you'll start seeing more of that type of content to keep you engaged.

Every second you're on that screen, it is making money. Algorithms, baby.

They're giant, mystical machines that, in my opinion, only want one thing – your attention. And it seems to me that angry people spend more time on social media.

If you agree with something you know will irk others of the opposite opinion, you'll dive headfirst into that comments section to see what they're saying.

You may not add any of your own commentary, but you'll probably "like" a few of the comments you most agree with, and maybe "angry react" some of the ones you most dislike.

But even if you're just reading, you're there, giving it your attention.

Noticed how the world has grown so much more tribal in the last few years? That's partly, in my view, because social media – not just Facebook, although that cops a large portion of the blame as it's the largest of the internet giants – has contributed to a huge global rise in partisanship.

I've seen it myself, friends who once were vaguely airy-fairy now deep into dangerous alternative therapies as opposed to modern medicine (drinking bleach is something I never thought I'd have to warn a grown adult not to do), acquaintances who once had only a slight interest in New Zealand politics sharing unhinged video clips claiming certain left-wing American politicians are blood-drinking demons.

Actual demons, not an adjective for bad people.

And they'll defend their new beliefs with all their hearts. It's terrifying.

That's what caused me to stop using Facebook two years ago.

I found myself ranting to friends and family all the time about the latest crazy thing people were believing in. I realised I was part of the problem – every time we talk about this rubbish, we further its spread.

It seems more and more people share the same sentiment.

In February, Facebook set a record for the largest one-day value drop in stock market history – losing more than $200 billion.

Earlier this year, it reportedly lost 500,000 daily active users – although almost 3 billion people have a Facebook account so that's a drop in the bucket.

Its "uncool" factor is rising, too – teenagers and young adults might have an account, but they don't really engage with it, preferring TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram.

Facebook is now apparently for old people.

Are we beginning to see the end of Facebook? Unlikely. It's far too powerful a company to just disappear and it's far too ingrained into our lives.

Even I didn't delete Facebook entirely.

How else will I be able to check when my second cousin's third child's best friend's mother's aunty's birthday is?

For better or worse, it's a beast that we've got to live with.

But we should go into it with our eyes open, knowing that everything we see in our feeds is there for a reason.

Sonya Bateson is a writer, reader, and crafter raising her family in Tauranga. She is a Millennial who enjoys eating avocado on toast, drinking lattes and defying stereotypes. As a sceptic, she reserves the right to change her mind when presented with new evidence.

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