Getting the Most out of Facebook

And Letting It Get Less out of You

Facebook is incredible. Even just 10 years ago it would have been hard to think that there would be one go-to online identity service.

That instead of giving someone your number when you meet them, just exchanging names could be enough to stay in touch with them for years.

That you don’t lose touch with people when they move. That you could keep up with the lives of people living anywhere in the world. That you could share pictures with all your friends at the click of a button.

But all these benefits come at a cost. Since Facebook is a for-profit company and not a public service, their main goal is to make money. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s worth keeping in mind how it affects Facebook’s interaction with us, its users.

“If you’re not paying then you’re not the customer; you are the product being sold”

Setting aside issues of privacy and Facebook gathering and selling your information, Facebook makes money by literally charging advertisers for a piece of your attention. One of the main ways in which it does this is through the News Feed.

There are entire teams dedicated to optimising the News Feed to keep you scrolling. The more you scroll, the more adverts you see. The more adverts you see, the more money Facebook makes.

I recently read the book Deep Work by Cal Newport, in which he advocates deliberate use of social media. In fact, he goes so far as to recommend quitting social media altogether. While I think that’s overkill, his book led me to re-examine how I used Facebook and to come up with a few easy ways to get the most out of it.