What is this controversial facebook study all about?

[woltr234]

In two sentences or less please. All the articles are paragraphs upon paragraphs... I value my time, so can someone give me the basic info in two sentences or less?

Best answer to first to comply.

[shaunmt]

In two sentences or less please. All the articles are paragraphs upon paragraphs... I value my time, so can someone give me the basic info in two sentences or less?

Best answer to first to comply.

Heh... my wife told me about this one... they were intentionally screwing with people's facebook preferences in order to measure how frustrated they got based on their postings and / or complaints.

For example... I prefer my Facebook feed to be sorted by newest posts... but they kept switching it back to sorted by Top Posts... which was very frustrating, because I wouldn't notice until I realized I was seeing the same old posts over and over, at which point I had to reset the preference again.

[budgetgeek]

Frustrating

How would you measure frustration from that?

I would be about to comment on a post and then realize it was posted yesterday, or 12 hours ago even, and then I would realize it and not comment and change the settings. Do you think they can measure that as mild frustration? I didn't make any comments about it changing.

[shaunmt]

How would you measure frustration from that?

I would be about to comment on a post and then realize it was posted yesterday, or 12 hours ago even, and then I would realize it and not comment and change the settings. Do you think they can measure that as mild frustration? I didn't make any comments about it changing.

Lots of people complained... either to Facebook support or via posting a Facebook update, asking their friends if it happens to them and how to fix it, etc... (remember Facebook staff can access everything you post)

So many people are on Facebook that the researchers involved may have even counted the number of times it came up in offline communication...

[budgetgeek]

Yeah, facebook is weird like that. I will talk to someone about a topic off facebook and offline even, and it will start showing up my newsfeed suggestions.

I read more about it, they were showing people more negative posts and still some others more positive posts, to see if the people would be sad together or be happy together, or be sad that others were happy or happy that others were sad. Totally within facebook TOS, oddly.

[shaunmt]

Yeah, facebook is weird like that. I will talk to someone about a topic off facebook and offline even, and it will start showing up my newsfeed suggestions.

I read more about it, they were showing people more negative posts and still some others more positive posts, to see if the people would be sad together or be happy together, or be sad that others were happy or happy that others were sad. Totally within facebook TOS, oddly.

I didn't know about that part... but that makes sense... I've been really close to un-friending some people because I was tired of their sappy or depressing posts...