What type of content would you prefer to see on Facebook?

Dorkly. Anime comedy. College humor.

Sounds like the people you talked to aren’t quite interested in social media. Why do they even go on Facebook if they don’t like the content?

Well, you build your own “population” on Facebook. The content you see is the content posted by your ‘friends.’

“We’re sorry but facebook has been shut down due to drivel overload.”

That’s all I really want to see.

Server to server bizarre fetish porn. The harder to look at the better.

A retired pachyderm’s life tends to be pretty boring, so I spend very little time writing about it or reading about others, even my closest friends, on TrunkBook.

Anything but all the trolls, spams, off-topic chit-chatting in a serious discussion and like beggars.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt as I also have a FB account I rarely go on (I was made to get one for school. Last time I visited was over a month ago). Anyway…

political
No please. Keep your allegiances to yourself.

life highlights
Nope. I so do not give a shit.

complaining
No. Get a fucking therapist for Christ’s sake.

religious
Gawd no. That’s what Fluther is for.

inspirational quotes
No. All your doing is inspiring me to stab you with a spoon.

link to interesting article
I’m okay with this. Unless it’s about cats. Then fuck you.

I’m pretty comfortable with my FB feed currently. Many people don’t take advantage of the many tools the site offers to help customize what we see. I have grouped my friends in various ways – mostly by how we met. I also have organized my interests into groups. If I befriend someone who posts often about things with which I disagree, I might ‘unfriend’ them or ‘unfollow’ them (which means we’re still on each others’ lists, but their content doesn’t show in my feed). If they ‘share’ a lot of posts from sites I do not care to see, I will hit the drop-down arrow in the top right and select ‘Hide All From _’ so I no longer see their game scores or the MegaMinister’s wisdom of the day, etc.

The one that has me flummoxed are the people who are in MSM nonsense who sell makeup, smelly stuff, jewelry, essential oils, etc. If they create a group and invite me, I can just decline; but when they put their posts in their regular timeline, I can’t do much about it. I wish social sites would allow us to hide posts that contain certain hashtags. In the meantime, I just try to Hide each individual post, hoping that the algorithm will notice that I consistently hide posts with #thebestskincaregeniuseseverbuynow so they’ll show them to me less and less often.

@cookieman . . . you had me at fuck you because cats

@Blondesjon: Right. Damn pussies.

I kinda thought the life sharing thing was the whole point of Facebook. I like reading about what my friends and family members are doing. It’s not all bragging. If nobody posted what was happening in their life, I wouldn’t bother being on the site at all.

If I want interesting articles, I’ll go to reddit.

@talljasperman – Thanks

@zenvelo: “Sounds like the people you talked to aren’t quite interested in social media. Why do they even go on Facebook if they don’t like the content?”

That’s an interesting question, but probably another one altogether. The reason I have been asking people what they would prefer to see on Facebook is precisely because it seems that any talk about Facebook (in my experience) is in the context of expressing how much they dislike what they see. Apparently these people are not alone.
Note: When I asked them my particular question about content, all of them offered up, “I should really quit Facebook”.

@Apparently_Im_The_Grumpy_One – You seem to be saying that Facebook is full of “drivel”, and that is why you don’t like it. What would you prefer to see?

@Blondesjon – Definitely more interesting, and would probably not make people more depressed and jealous, like the current Facebook does.

@Mimishu1995 – Do you think these problems are inherent in social media, your selection of “friends”, or something else?

@cookieman – The cat backlash should begin somewhere. I am looking to you for leadership.

@hearkat – It sounds like you know what you want from Facebook and are able to curate your feed and customize the experience to your liking. Does it seem that most of the interactions you have are with “real” friends who you see regularly or would prefer to see regularly were it not for busy schedules or geography? In other words, does it feel like a small-ish group of friends getting together?

@keobooks: “I kinda thought the life sharing thing was the whole point of Facebook.”

That was my understanding as well. I wonder if Facebook makes us sad if we are someone who is prone to frequent comparison? It’s a bit of a puzzle to me. And yes, reddit is more appropriate for articles and info curation.

Thanks everyone.

@DoNotKnow My selection of friends has nothing to do with these things – in fact they only chit-chat with each other so I don’t mind their business. My problem mostly lies in public discussion. I never participate in any discussion on Facebook myself, but I do observe some. And most of them are either get derailed to personal chit-chatting (one person says something “shocking”, then others follow and the topic turns into that shocking thing) or turn into flame wars.

I think my problems are just idiots who think they are smarter than they really are jump in a discussion, and attention seekers who want nothing but likes post nothing but “give me likes please” randomly on every posts they see. These people really need to go!

In response to the article you posted about people feeling sadder when they hang out on facebook: I’d hazard a guess that, in the end, they feel they’ve been lazy and unproductive, and have put off things that need to be done around the house, or out in the yard off, to hang out on facebook. Or they may have sacrificed time with kids, friends and spouses to hang out there.

For the most part I’m happy with my feeds. They are, after all, the kind of people, and posts, that interest me. There are some people I really can’t unfriend whose posts sometimes annoy me. They’re all about them, them them. I just ignore them .

I hate the humble brag I don’t mind bragging now and then, but humble brags are really annoying.

I love seeing their kids, trips, holiday photos, all that. College humour, music, interesting articles. I really don’t like: constant memes, about how other people are stupid, or inspirational type stuff. “please share” most of these are not the type things I want to pass on. Political memes, posts, rants, just stop. And the one one thing that will make me unfollow is when people post shit about their home based business and nothing but.

AND, this thing, perhaps it is only obscure to my own intelligence: post of a teacher or some one holding a sign that says, ” this is an exercise or project—or whatever—to show my class of second graders how fast things travel on the Internet! Please share” I don’t understand! You post something on social media and people see it. What am I missing here?

Well, their point is, if you share it, it should eventually come back around to them, after having traveled around the world.
It’s usually a lesson in response to kids not understanding how the stuff can get around like it does. It’s supposedly a lesson on why they should not post pictures of themselves, especially compromising pictures.

I don’t pass those on any more. I can’t tell who is serious and who is doing stuff just to get attention.

I get so annoyed when I see this being posted, over and over again. My kids knew all about that it seems like when they were 8.

I think their point is, some don’t believe it and they’re just trying to drive home the point.

Anyway, you can mark it so you don’t see that kind of thing any more.

@DoNotKnow – I have more than 1 FB account, which I created for different groups of people. I’ve made numerous friends via the web, so I have one under Hearkat. It’s fun when the lines get blurred, like how @Blondesjon befriended many of my friends that I know from other sites where (to the best of my knowledge) he was not a member. I presume he did it to promote his radio show or podcast or whatever it was, but it’s fun.

My ‘real name’ page is for the people I went to school with and work with, etc. I had one instance where the worlds collided… another jelly is friends with the cousin of a close friend’s (now ex) husband, and I recognized the name.

I also get my news and follow public figures there, and I’ve created a couple groups based on interests of mine. It really is what you make it – like life in general.