Facebook is working on a “things in common” feature that can point to the commonalities you have with other random users -- whether you share a neighbourhood with them or went to the same university.
The tool is currently available for select users in the US and displays information a user has in common with people they are not friends with.
According to Facebook, the tags that the feature will use will not violate a user’s privacy it will only display information that is publicly available, meaning the same information can also be seen by someone by visiting a user’s profile.
The tool is another step from Facebook to make public discussions more meaningful on the platform.
Facebook recently announced new tools to help people manage their time on Facebook and Instagram that includes an activity dashboard, a daily reminder and a new way to limit notifications.
To access the tools, go to the settings page on either app. On Instagram tap “Your Activity,” and on Facebook, tap “Your Time on Facebook.” At the top, you’ll see a dashboard showing your average time for that app on that device.
Tap any bar to see your total time spent for that day. You can also set a daily reminder to give yourself an alert when you’ve reached the amount of time you want to spend on that app for a day. You can change or cancel the reminder at any time. You can also tap on “Notification Settings” to quickly access the new “Mute Push Notifications” setting. This will limit your Facebook or Instagram notifications for a period of time when you are in a meeting and need to focus on other important things.
“We have a responsibility to help people understand how much time they spend on our platforms so they can better manage their experience. Although we have more work to do, over the past year, we’ve introduced a number of tools to help people better control their experience on Facebook and Instagram,” the company said in a blog post.
Over past few years, Facebook has improved News Feed quality to show people the most relevant posts with features like See First, Hide, Unfollow, and Keyword Snooze. And on Instagram, the company recently launched “You’re All Caught Up” message in Feed that lets you know when you’ve scrolled through all new posts from the last 48 hours.
“It’s not just about the time people spend on Facebook and Instagram but how they spend that time. It’s our responsibility to talk openly about how time online impacts people — and we take that responsibility seriously. These new tools are an important first step, and we are committed to continuing our work to foster safe, kind and supportive communities for everyone,” added Ameet Ranadive, Product Management Director at Instagram, and David Ginsberg, Director of Research at Facebook.
