Feed

What does feed mean? 

Feed or social media feed is the dynamic stream of content that appears when a user logs in to their social media accounts. The content that can show up on a user’s feed includes text posts, links, ads and visuals shared by the user’s friends, family and followers.  

The display order in feeds is decided by the social media algorithms of the particular platform. Oftentimes, the order is chronological, from newest to oldest. However, algorithms may adjust the order based on engagement, relevance, user behavior and algorithmic updates.   

How are social media feeds classified and controlled?   

Feeds can be categorized as: 

Personal feed: This is the posts and links that a user posts on their own account. 

News feed: This is the posts and links that a user’s followers post on their accounts, plus external recommendations based on the user’s interests and trending topics.  You can control what shows up on your feed by various ways: 

• Turn off notifications 
• Unfollow or mute accounts you don’t wish to see 
• Set time restrictions 
• Use distraction-blocking apps  

Remember, pointless scrolling through social media feeds is a waste of time and should be avoided by self-regulation.