Our minds were recently blown after reading a study about the link between Facebook posts and personality traits. Researchers from The University of Kansas have been studying how well we can detect the personality traits of strangers from their Facebook activity.
Extroverts have a greated tendency to us extended letters in words, for example “noooo” or “heeeeey.”

Back when we were able to easily see every single friend’s every single Facebook interaction, it was pretty easy for us to innately read people’s personalities. Super-open Carlie is posting pictures of her honeymoon. Introverted Jennifer is quoting Edgar Allan Poe. Disagreeable Gary is hating on another movie. Obsessive Annie liked your post. Again.

But—and here’s the mindblowing part—Facebook’s current algorithm may inadvertently fill your newsfeed with posts from friends who are less agreeable, have a lower degree of openness and are highly extroverted. These are not bad personality traits, per se, but according to research these people are more likely to create posts that some of us may not want to see.

Here’s what we know about Facebook’s algorithm:Your newsfeed is comprised of posts based on recency, popularity (i.e. number of shares, likes and comments) and how frequently you’ve interacted with your friend who wrote the post.

Here’s what we know about how different personalities behave on Facebook: – Extroverts tend to have more friends on Facebook- Extroverts tend to post more positive status updates- Extroverts have a greater tendency to extended letters in words, for example “noooo” or “heeeeey.”- Agreeable people tend to post less often.- An open person is less likely to like or comment on other people’s posts.- Open people are more likely to make more political status updates (which often garner a reaction).- A conscientious person will agree more (in this case “Like”) often with what other people post.

This means:– Your friends with lower degrees of agreeability—those who approach people with a skeptical eye before going out of their way to help them—are likely to post more, so you’re more likely to see their posts. – You’re most likely to see comments from friends with low degrees of openness (those who are less likely to want to try new things) or high conscientiousness, or your friends who are most dutiful and disciplined.- Extroverts are dominating your newsfeed, blocking out the musings of your introverted friends. Since extroverts are likely to have more friends, their posts are that much more likely to get more likes, and thereby show up in your newsfeed.- You may be seeing the least agreeable or most controversial posts of any of your friends. (For example, when the girl who barely spoke in high school posts something controversial, you’ll see it.)

“If Facebook suddenly starts highlighting people you may not have regularly interacted with and promotes a lot of posts from them, you may no longer think that person is agreeable,” says doctoral candidate Natalie Pennington, who was involved in the study. “It may not be that they post that much, but that your feed has gotten smaller and shows a smaller subset of friends.”

If you’ve noticed that your feed has become filled with posts from people you don’t want to see, click on the posts and pages of the friends you are interested in hearing updates from. Like their posts. Interact with them. It’ll help you self-select for the people you want, and hopefully provide a platform to strengthen your friendship in real life, too.

That is, until the next Facebook algorithm change!

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