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Where is the Facebook Off Switch?

feature thumbs downI am going to mention a few things. See if you can spot the trend.

  • Jian Gomeshi
  • Parliment attack
  • Ice bucket challenge
  • Rene Zellweger

If you guessed that they are each a trend in themselves (especially if you are Canadian) then you are right.

Though each has it’s own level of interest to everyone (from yawn to over reaction) the common thread to me is – Enough already.

Yes some are more important events than others, but I really have had enough of each of them. From vanity, to allegations. From awareness to tragedy the last few months my Facebook feed has been riddled with re-posts (especially for some reason from radio station pages), reactions, over the top and continuous posting posting and more posting.

It gets to the point that one wants to just drop out of the feed altogether.

Which brings me to a point of over exposure. Sure we see things trending and want to comment. I expect things such as the attacks on Parliament and the subsequent news of the deaths of two soldiers garner more relevant attention and outpouring, but the sheer amount is at times overwhelming.

At what point does one reach that saturation level and just simply skip or start to block things? For me its pretty much in about 12 to 24 hours depending on the trending story.

I really don’t have a point here other than to submit to my Santa wish list that Facebook will allow me to filter my news feed to block by keywords. Will that hurt marketing efforts? Perhaps. But it will make the news feed more enjoyable and I suspect let people engage with more relevant brands and posts by friends and pages that they get notifications from.

Next up: Zombies. Hey, it is Halloween season.

Side point: Your feed is mainly made up of three things. Friends whom you interact with on a regular basis and friends/pages that you get notifications from. If you drop the Get Notification you can always hide those posts. But then you might miss out on future posts once a said trend dies.

Todays related wiki word: Schadenfreude