As I suspected, my news feed was a self propelled echo chamber, with random results when it comes to engagement.  I was certain that the systematic program needed to catch up with my swift and drastic changes in platform usage.

Here and there, people were starting to pop back up, into my feed because someone (not on my list) had tagged them in a post; in addition to that the Ads feature seems to be attempting to “hone in” on me.

To remind you of my process; I have done the best I can to unfollow every person, group and page.  I am actively hiding ads that I find irrelevant to me, and I am snoozing people if they reappear on my feed.

See, much like you, I want my best experience on Facebook to be productive, insightful, and easy to walk away from.

I know I am great at research, assistance and connecting on deeper levels.  I know I primarily use my page to share what I am doing, otherwise, well… next to no one will see it, and I still like engagement on my creativity.

So.

I got my first relative ad today.  A local coffee roaster is having a sampling.  I like coffee, I like local, and I like samples.  This is relevant.

The only ad I have not blocked was for this pen, that acts as a mouse and a stylis, so it’s easier to draw with than your average full-palm mouse, or finger mouse pad.  Useful for things I would like to do.

Part of the perfect experience on FB, is going to be the ads since we know those aren’t going to go away soon.  If they are going to work hard to tailor the ads to me, I hope to see stuff I would actually consider spending money on, rather than multiple ads about pregnancy supplements and funnels.  I will leave that to the pros.

The next piece to make a great experience is to eliminate the repetition of singular reoccurring posts within a few scrolls of the screen.  At times I’ve wondered why I have seen the same post from the same person with only a break of three to five posts between them, (not to mention one of those three to five posts would be an irrelevant ad.)

The third thing that would add to the experience, and also give leeway to walk away, is only showing deeply relevant posts.  They rely on us, to pick our audience to some extent; this is why we can set up contact groups, regulate posts to public, friends, selected audience or private.  This is why groups can choose to be private, or closed.

I am pretty open.  I am interested in seeing a bunch of different things; the one thing I DO NOT WANT is repetition.   If the program feels inclined to repeat a post, that is when I want the “There are no more story posts to share at this time.” prompt.

Cool.  Let me walk away.  I know someone will post something in five minutes, but if I can walk away before that happens, or I press “refresh”  I have a better chance of walking away until later, when a group of new posts are ready to fill my feed.

I wouldn’t even mind if you had the option to set yourself timers for your online engagement.  Perhaps it would just cut you off at a certain time, and only let you back in after a set duration.

What I do know, is that I am thankful that I haven’t put the app on my phone at all.  I don’t have mobile FB messenger and to reach the website in public is tedious.  Even from the web page, messenger is unavailable, so I definitely do not have the problem of being engaged with FB when I am away from my house.  ( I love being at least three years behind in mobile tech than most people.)

I wonder if more people decided to take proactive action in how social media platforms SHOULD operate, instead of waiting for the platform to slowly develop by adjusting our engagement for the purpose of the company; how our interaction with these platforms may actually serve us better and add into productivity vs. distracting the hell out of us.

What do you think?  Have you taken a social media break that didn’t pan out?  Did you basically leave social media at one point?  Are you a late social media bloomer, and wonder where this has been your whole life and why you didn’t jump on the boat earlier?

I’d love to hear your stories about life with social media.  Stories of love, hate and ambivalence.  Please share in the comments and as always, thank you for your patronage.