You Don’t Only See 26 Friends on Facebook
You've probably seen the post from a friend in your Facebook feed. I know I've seen it at least a half dozen times. It talks about how a new Facebook algorithm is only showing you 26 of your friends. It goes on to ask you to like and comment on the post, and then, supposedly you'll show up in the poster's feed more.
Not true. Snopes originally debunked this back in December. In fact, they talked to Facebook which told them "the rumor held no water." Snopes also pointed out that their own observations concurred with what Facebook was saying.
I get why this misguided rumor persists though. Facebook does tend to show us content from some friends more than others. Or at least it seems that way. Is there a rhyme or reason to what we see? I don't know. I thought it might have something to do with how much we interact with friends. Maybe. But there are some Facebook friends I haven't interacted with in months that always pop up. It could have to do with how often your friends post. Obviously, someone posting only once or twice a month isn't going to pop up as much as someone posting several times a day.
One thing is for sure, posting or liking your friend's post talking about how you're only seeing 25 or 26 friends isn't going to help you see more friends. I'd love it if Facebook just showed every post from every friend as they posted it.That seems about right. It might also get us to cull our Facebook friends list a little bit. After all, do we really need to be Facebook friends with our best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend?