Facebook’s news feed algorithm determines the mix of content from friends, pages, and advertisers that each person sees in their feed. There are a few key reasons why the algorithm often prioritizes showing you more ads than personal posts from friends and family:
Ads Generate Revenue for Facebook
Facebook is a free platform that generates nearly all of its revenue from advertising. In 2020, Facebook generated $84.2 billion in ad revenue, accounting for 98% of its total revenue. So Facebook has a strong financial incentive to maximize the number of ads it can show to each user.
Showing more ads increases the chances that users will click on them, which allows Facebook to charge more to advertisers. The more ads they cram into the news feed, the more money they stand to make. Even if it sometimes comes at the cost of showing fewer personal updates from friends and family.
News Feed Real Estate is Limited
There is only so much content that can fit into a user’s news feed at one time. Facebook must choose what stories and posts to prioritize within the limited space available.
The average Facebook user has around 150 friends and follows dozens of pages or public figures. There is too much potential content from those connections for Facebook to show users everything.
So Facebook’s algorithm filters the news feed down to a subset of updates it predicts will be most relevant to each person. To maximize ad views and revenue, Facebook reserves more of that “real estate” for paid ads.
Ads Help Keep Facebook Free
Facebook highlights that its ad model allows it to offer its services for free to billions of people around the world. If they relied entirely on charging subscription fees like some other social networks, far fewer people would be able to access their services.
So in a sense, seeing more ads can be viewed as the “price” people pay to use Facebook’s apps at no monetary cost. Facebook argues that its ad targeting capabilities also mean that many of the ads are relevant and useful to the viewer.
Algorithms Optimize for Engagement
Facebook’s machine learning algorithms aim to predict which content will get the most engagement and interaction from each person. They define engagement based on metrics like comments, reactions, shares, clicks, and time spent viewing.
Research has found that people tend to find ads more novel and eye-catching than the typical status update from a friend or family member. So Facebook’s algorithm tends to predict that ads will have higher engagement rates and reach more people via shares and reactions.
To maximize overall engagement on the platform, their models are optimized to push more ad content into the mix. Even if it means you see fewer updates from your personal connections in favor of more ads.
Friends Aren’t Posting as Much
Another factor is that people simply aren’t posting personal updates to Facebook as much as they used to. So there is less friend content competing with ads for news feed real estate.
Over time, more casual Facebook users have shifted to only checking Facebook occasionally or relying on it mostly for events, groups, and messaging. With fewer friends actively posting status updates, Instagram stories, photos, etc., that leaves more space for ads to fill.
Facebook Wants to Show You “High Quality” Content
Facebook says its algorithms are designed to rank the most “meaningful” posts higher in the news feed. But meaningfulness is subjective and their definition focuses heavily on engagement and virality.
They aim to show you content that will elicit reactions, spark conversation, and interact with a wide audience. Ads tend to achieve those goals more consistently than everyday posts from individuals.
Facebook maintains that even if their model favors ads, it ultimately benefits users by showing them the most interesting and relevant content for each person based on their habits and preferences.
Friends Are Sharing More Public Content
Facebook has observed that users are increasingly sharing and interacting with public content from pages, publishers, and public figures rather than personal status updates.
Their algorithm favors public content because it tends to get more broad engagement. As a result, posts from celebrities, news sites, viral videos, and other public sources get wider reach, leaving less space for personal updates from an individual’s network of family/friends.
Facebook’s Incentives Don’t Always Align with Users
At the end of the day, Facebook is an advertising company. Their priority is showing you ads that grab your attention, even if that means you see less content posted by your friends and family members.
Facebook’s incentives are not always aligned with providing the most socially beneficial user experience. There are trade-offs between optimizing for revenue and optimizing for strengthening personal relationships.
But Facebook has focused its algorithm more heavily on the former over the years. Critics argue they have prioritized “time well spent” on the platform over time well spent cultivating real-world relationships.
You Have Lots of Friends You Don’t Interact With
Most Facebook users have over 100 friends on the platform. But how many of those connections do you actively interact with on a regular basis?
For many users, there may only be a handful of close friends and family that they frequently view updates from and communicate with. They may have hundreds of other connections from acquaintances, past colleagues, distant relatives etc. that they rarely engage with.
Facebook’s algorithm factors in your past interactions to determine which friends to show higher in your feed. Since you engage little with the majority of your friends, their updates are more likely to be pushed down below ads.
Options to See More Friend Content
If you want to see more updates from your friends and less advertising content, there are some steps you can take:
- Use the “Friends” feed filter – This shows you only posts from friends and ignores pages/public figures/ads.
- Engage more with friends’ content – React, comment, share – this signals to Facebook you want to see more of their posts.
- Snooze or unfollow friends you don’t interact with – Cuts down on less relevant updates.
- Follow/react less to public pages/figures – They will occuppy less of your feed.
- See more friend posts in Stories rather than main News Feed.
However, Facebook will likely still mix in some ads among your friends’ posts. The platform is designed to monetize through advertising, so ads will rarely be eliminated completely.
Conclusion
Facebook shows more ads than personal posts because:
- Ads generate nearly all Facebook’s revenue
- There is limited space in the news feed
- Ads support Facebook’s free services
- Algorithms optimize for “engagement”
- Friends are posting less personal content
- Public content shares are emphasized more
Their incentives are focused more on benefiting the business than maximizing real social interaction. But users do have some options to take back a bit more of their feed for personal updates.