[puppy_nap]

The fact that chronological feeds drive less user activity than ML-based ranking engines isn't an interesting result. Presumably the ranking algorithms have access to timestamps and would have just learned to order posts by time if that maximized engagement.

Of course, more activity doesn't mean your user is actually having a better experience. We have all seen social media addicts who spend hours and hours doomscrolling yet are miserable the entire time. Users spending less time on Meta didn't mean they "hate" the feed, from what I've seen, people who actually enjoy social media are those who spent very little time on it.

This article brings up a good point, which is that in an environment where all the big players are willing to abuse their users, those who do try to make their platform less addictive will just end up losing their users to those who don't. The only real solution is industry wide regulation.