Here’s an interesting nugget that came out of Meta’s ongoing antitrust trial: Mark Zuckerberg once considered deleting ALL of your Facebook friends and making everyone start over.
He suggested the idea back in 2022, because the SOCIAL aspect of Facebook was declining. The thinking was that this could encourage users to reconnect with Facebook, while rebuilding their social connections.
It wouldn’t have been the end of the world to re-add your close friends and family members, but it might’ve been difficult to reconnect with that one random guy you talked to at a barbecue in 2011. (His name was Brent. Or was it Blake? He has a Black Lab named Suzy.)
The problem is mostly Meta’s fault, though. You’re seeing less of your friends’ content on Facebook and Instagram. And more “suggested” content, short-form videos, and other algorithmic distractions.
In one slide of Meta’s presentation, they shared this stat:
Two years ago, the time spent viewing friends’ content was 22% on Facebook, and 11% on Instagram. And now, that’s dropped to 17% on Facebook and 7% on Instagram.
They also noted that Instagram has become “more of a messaging app than a broadcast-sharing app at this point.”
(Tech Crunch / Business Insider)
