Facebook, aka The Most Inefficient Way To Get News, can take up a LOT of time, especially if you're trying to find the top stories on a certain topic.
I think it's common knowledge that scrolling, while addictive, isn't particularly useful in showing you what you need-- only what Facebook thinks your lizard brain wants.
So rather than scrolling, I'm organizing my time more tightly on Facebook using a few key functionalities. Here's how:
- I mark certain pages (mostly news) as "See First." That forces their posts to the top and is my main attempt to get around the newsfeed algorithm. You can do this on the Page itself (use the drop down "Following" menu at the top).
- I make heavy use of the "Shortcuts" option in the left sidebar. I've dragged and dropped groups so work groups and others I want or need to see are at the top.
- I set up notifications to include colleagues and friends in close touch.
- I avoid scrolling as much as possible. Scrolling forever is what Facebook (and Instagram, and Twitter, etc) want us to do. But it doesn't ensure that I'm really in touch with friends, or see news that's important to me.
- Periodically checking in on friends who Facebook hasn't shown me in awhile. :)
This ends up saving a lot of time, as I get info more directly related to what I need and am interested in, and less of a guess from FB about what I might like.
- One last note: I saw an article recently about how we intend 'likes' (or other emoji) to communicate to a friend or page that we saw and have some reaction to a post. But what's maybe ephemeral to a friend is a long-term data mine for FB on each of us individually, which is very valuable/profitable info. It's not a new revelation or anything, just a good reminder for me that I don't have to click an emoji and that there are other ways to communicate with friends. It's hard to break the habit of 'click like to show I care,' but can ultimately lead to a better overall FB experience.