When I open up Threads, I often come across two-day old posts from strangers, which the app shows me because the people I follow replied to them yesterday. It’s not exactly ideal.
“This post from two days ago is unironically near the top of my feed tonight,” reporter Brian Stelter wrote on Threads back in April, attaching a screenshot that read: “love to open this app and see what people were talking about two days ago.” One of the more common post types these days on Meta’s attempted “Twitter-killer”—aside from those asking, “Is anyone still here?”—are the ones either grousing about or making fun of the famous multiday lag between when posts hit the app and when they reach eyeballs. But the experience on Threads is just an exaggerated version of what it feels like on any social media platform in 2024. The pronounced lack of recency is yet another symptom of the slow gasping death of the chronological internet.
Post by @jill_krajewskiView on Threads
It all started with Facebook, which first rolled out its algorithmically curated news feed 13 years ago, much to the general annoyance of everyone. Of course, like most Facebook updates back then, users briefly revolted before eventually accepting it. In the years afterward, like falling dominoes, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn all followed suit; then TikTok’s explosive success made its algorithm the envy of absolutely every social media platform. Now, as Fast Company’s Mark Wilson succinctly put it, “Our internet is essentially one big For You page.”
Having an algorithmic feed can feel like constantly realizing you forgot to restore text notifications until well after the meeting you silenced them for has ended. Every topical post that the algo delivers too late might as well be a text from your partner that reads, “I’m at Target, if you need anything.” Miss it when it was meant to be seen and you might as well not see it at all.
Hooked on the algorithm
Threads launched last July with a purely algorithmic feed, before introducing an alternative option three weeks later due to feverish demand. Like its chief competitor, X (formerly Twitter), Threads now allows users to toggle between its algo-curated For You page, and a Following version that unfurls in classic chronological fashion. Where the two differ, though, is that Threads steers users toward its For You feed more aggressively. X sometimes defaults to For You—momentarily disorienting users until they remember to toggle over to Following—but Threads always defaults to For You, and includes the extra step of having to tap the Threads logo at the top of the feed in order for the Following option to even appear. (Other platforms hide the chronological option, too; good luck finding it on Facebook!)
Users had already suspected the additional friction on Threads was meant to make it a less political news-driven site than X well before Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who also has a hand in Threads, confirmed in February that the platform avoids recommending political content. Considering how far X’s reputation has fallen since Elon Musk started steering the ship, Meta seems wise to clearly differentiate Threads from X’s traditionally news-driven model. But that difference comes at the expense of missing a lot of topical conversation (political or otherwise) in real time.
As the title “For You” high-key states, the algorithmic option is always presented as being for the user’s benefit. Sometimes, the argument goes, you might not know—or be willing to admit to yourself—what your heart truly wants out of social media until an elegant string of coding trained on your demonstrated behavior benevolently serves it up on a digital silver platter. Not the most recent news, jokes, or insights, of course, but those of a semi-recent vintage with the highest statistical probability of hitting your sweet spot. (Along with ads that blend in seamlessly among posts from folks users don’t follow.) “Recency is one important input into what people find meaningful,” Mosseri said in 2015, when he was VP of Facebook’s News Feed product management, “but we have found over and over again that it’s not the only one.”
That may generally be the case, but algorithmic feeds fail us in the many moments when recency is the input that matters most. When something like, say, a solar eclipse happens, the only thing more useless than seeing people freak out over it well after we’ve all moved on with our lives, is whatever cosmic slop the algo served up instead during the moment of totality. Our ability to keep up with what everyone is talking about is routinely eclipsed by more “meaningful” content. Clearly, the goal here is not to improve the user experience but to merely extend it.
Chronological feeds for kids
Algorithmic feeds are spider webs, with each gossamer thread meant to ensnare users indefinitely. The format is so famously addictive, New York recently passed the SAFE (Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation) for Kids Act, which bans social media platforms from algorithmically recommending content to children. A counterpart program called the Protecting Kids from Social Media Addiction Act is currently brewing in California, and one of its key provisions involves making a chronological feed the default setting on platforms.
For kids in New York and potentially California, having a chronological feed is about to become the eat-all-your-vegetables of social media. Not that adults seem to feel much differently about it.
Last year, Meta revealed the results of a two-year study that essentially proved most adults prefer algorithmic feeds. Back in 2020, the company randomly reverted 7,200 Facebook users and 8,800 Instagram users back to chronological feeds. Both groups subsequently grew bored with their apps much faster than they had previously, with Facebookers navigating directly to Reddit 52% more often and Instagrammers increasing their TikTok time by 36% on average. These findings seem conclusive. The people have spoken, even if the algorithm has made it so they are only heard from two days later.
Less engaging social media
It may be tempting to consider the study’s results as definitive proof that people prefer an algo-derived feed, but the cottage industry of distraction-blocker apps suggests it’s less a matter of preference than one of irresistible magnetic pull. What would probably be healthiest for users is if the chronological feed stuck around as the default option, allowing adults to choose whether to forgo their vegetables instead of having them preemptively tossed away. As is, the only remaining major social media platform that’s always chronological by default is Bluesky, which offers two algorithmic tabs—Discover and Popular With Friends—to toggle between, along with the option to make customized lists that filter out the voices users want to hear from less often.
But not enough people are on Bluesky to vouch for its superiority. The platform still has fewer than six million total users at the time of this writing. Meanwhile, Threads has more than 150 million.
The reason Bluesky might not be catching on could very well be because, as Meta’s study suggests, the chronological timeline makes people want to spend less time there. But the fact that users might want to, you know, log off from time to time, shouldn’t be considered a UX flaw.
The desire to log off is not inherently a bad thing. It might just mean that a person has had their fill of devouring posts for the moment and is ready to move on to something else. If that “something else” happens to be another social media site in some cases, it shouldn’t necessitate an arms race for creating the least “leave-able” social media site of all. Wanting to increase levels of engagement to the exclusion of all other diversions feels like crossing a line. There’s a difference, after all, between providing captivating content and holding someone captive.
It’s understandable that social media companies want to optimize their product for maximum usage. That’s how capitalism works. I just wish they’d be more honest about their motivations, rather than pretending to be driven by an altruistic desire to give the people what they want. If they expect us to swallow that, well, they must think we were born yesterday. (Or two days ago.)
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