So I realized that it’s possible to use Facebook like Twitter. Here’s how:
On Facebook, you can flag any of your friends as “Close Friends”. Ignore the fact that it says “Close Friends”, use this in the same manner as “Follow” on Twitter. For anyone whose content you’d like to follow, flag him/her as “Close Friends”. Then set your smart-phone to notify you when any of them post something new. Because Facebook notifies you as soon as they post, your notification queue would look like Twitter; everything listed in the reverse-chronological order. This allows you to ignore Facebook’s ranking algorithm. You wouldn’t be looking at what Facebook thinks is important for you; you would be controlling what you want to see and when.
This way of using Facebook eliminates the need for you to actively check Facebook on a regular basis. If there is something you should check, it would let you know. Otherwise, you can ignore it.
Here’s how you set this up:
When you roll over the name of a person, you get a little pop-up box with a drop-down labelled “Friends”. Select “Close Friends” for anyone whose content you want to follow.
From the little down-arrow in the upper right corner, select “Settings”. Then select “Notifications”. Assuming that you have Facebook App on your smart-phone, turn off Email notification by selecting “Only notifications about your account, security and privacy.” (Unless you want to be notified twice.)
Then, go to your Facebook App, select “More”, scroll down and select “Settings”, and select “Notifications”, scroll down and select “Close Friends activity”. Check “Get notifications”.
Now every time the people you follow post anything new, your smart phone will let you know.
