"Without Facebook I wouldn't hear from my high school friends very much," Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, said in an interview with Axios last year.
Blocking them cleared out room in my News Feed for news sources, funny meme pages, and even some posts from actual friends. For months, I've been haunted by companies like Everlane and Glossier, which ostensibly target the same young, female-identifying, urban-dwelling people over and over again. I was shocked at how many ads-especially for the same companies-had actually populated my News Feed. Predictably, clearing my News Feed of ads made for a much better experience. Social Fixer did help improve my News Feed somewhat, but what really made the difference was another Chrome extension: AdBlock Plus. A manicured but entirely predictable News Feed may be just as bad as one that feels out of control. Ultimately, I declined to use very many of them.
Using Social Fixer's filters is difficult if you don't know what's bothering you, or what you want more of, before actually seeing it. This is what makes Social Fixer hard: I’m not sure I-or most people on Facebook-know exactly what they will spend time looking at online given the chance. Which means Facebook kept feeding them to me. I didn’t really enjoy watching the videos when I thought about it, but I spent a lot of time consuming them anyway. I found myself intoxicated by strange cooking videos and cute animal clips. For example, when Facebook started prioritizing video content last year, my News Feed filled up with viral videos from brands and publishers. Social Fixer’s filters work great, but it’s hard to know exactly what you don’t want to see.
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