Once upon a time, people connected. They gathered in various locations to talk about the world and the problems in it. Even if that conversation was just about the game of the day before.
Once upon a time, newspapers were read by the masses. Everyone read the same the news stories and was aware of the same situations that were happening at a local, national and international level.
Once upon a time, citizens were called to read news stories that were controversial to their beliefs and their opinions. This made for a diverse and educated populace that, when asked questions such as “which do you prefer, ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act?” could have told you that they are one and the same. Sadly, our present day cannot accomplish that simple feat that comes down to being knowledgeable and “knowing things.”
Now, in place of knowing things we have Angry Birds, memes and our Facebook news feeds that don’t really tell us anything about the world. Recently, Facebook has taken it to a whole new level, with the creation of Paper. This new app is basically Facebook’s version of a newspaper. When you sign up through the App Store,, it has you configure what types of news you would like to see in your Paper. The options vary from technology to science to celebrity news; there are 19 options total besides your own Facebook “news.”
The thing is, you can only choose nine! So even if you are trying to get a good broad spectrum of the news, you just can’t. Too bad. Move on. Enjoy your almost news.
What it does give you is a new and (according to Facebook) improved version of your newsfeed. Now you can see full screen versions of your friend’s photos, and horizontal scrolling rather than the traditional vertical style scrolling. It turns out your friends really aren’t good photographers, headline writers or spellers. Especially when showcased next to the professionals. Now, that “Which Johnny Depp character are you?” quiz, where it was once disposable and easy to ignore, is out of place and impossible to miss.
Granted, this isn’t a total flaw. You can hide your Facebook stream at the back of the queue and ignore it if you choose, but doesn’t that seem like a bit of a waste? It’s too bad you can’t trade it out for a different category of the so-called news they are trying to shove down your throat.
The best part about this new Paper is that is one hundred percent personalized. Your tech pages will be different from your best friend’s. You only get shown the news which Facebook deems will agree with opinions that you already have. If you have clicked on photos or stories about climate change, that’s what you are going to see stories about and related to. But if you choose to click those photos that are mash-ups of Miley Cyrus’s and Justin Bieber’s faces, welcome to your news. Maybe you have a thing for the creepy sloth and click on every one you see on your newsfeed, just for a laugh. Welcome to your news.
The thing is, this isn’t the only app that does it. If you log onto your Yahoo homepage, and I onto mine, we will get two totally different pages. Two different sets of “relevant” stories. The way most media runs today is all personalized. Because God forbid that you might run across something that is controversial to your beliefs.
I’m not saying that this new way for Facebook to make money off of us is bad. I’m not saying don’t get it.
All I’m saying is that maybe you should consider an app like Flipboard if you want a consolidated news-from-everywhere app. It might still be personalized to some degree, but it makes more sense than Paper.
