Facebook Feed And Facebook Wall, What You See And What You Miss

I’m writing this post because you drive me crazy. Yes, YOU. If you think that you are included in the crazy making list, by the time you read this post you’ll have figured it out. I’ll make it really simple for you to understand some common terminology and concepts about Facebook.

You don’t really drive me crazy, but I sure do get tired of repeating myself, so maybe this will really help you keep things straight and give you a better understanding of a social media site that continues to keep the world connected regardless of the fact that it baffles a large majority of the human population over the age of 30.

Let’s start with the basics.

There are two basic pages that you probably visit everyday.

Your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED and your Facebook WALL.

Understanding Your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED

Yeah, my family has a thing with squirrels. 😉

When you sign into your Facebook account at https://www.facebook.com/ you will be taken to a page called your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED. You are the only one that can see this page. Your friends do not see this page unless they are at your house peeking over your shoulder.

There’s a bar across the top of the screen and three columns. Refer to the picture and notations to understand the elements I’m going to discuss about your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED.

RED CIRCLE – In the blue bar at the top of your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED in the far upper left hand corner you will see the Facebook lower case “f” icon. When clicked, that “f” icon takes you to the same page as the word HOME that you find in the blue bar at the top of your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED. The page they both take you to is your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED.

BRIGHT GREEN SQUARE – In the blue bar at the top of your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED in the far upper right hand corner you will see a slightly darker silhouette of the shoulders up of two hairless people. Just saying!

If there is a red square with a white number inside the square (also known as a bubble) dangling over the two people icon, it means that there are that many people who have requested to be your friend. These are new requests and the number will remain there until you look at the requests.

When you click on the two people icon, you will see a pop up box and have the option to either CONFIRM their friendship which means that you want the person to be able to see and be active on your Facebook FRIEND page or you can DELETE REQUEST and deny them access to your Facebook FRIEND page. You will also be given the option to request being the friend of PEOPLE YOU MAY KNOW by clicking the ADD FRIEND next to their name.

AQUA ARROW – In the blue bar at the top of your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED in the far upper right hand corner you will see a slightly darker double conversation bubble icon.

If there is a red square with a white number inside the square (also known as a bubble) dangling over the double conversation bubble icon, it means that you have received that many new Facebook messages.

As indicated by the AQUA ARROW, you also can access your messages from the first column on the left under the blue bar at the top of your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED by clicking the word MESSAGES. The number of new messages you have received is indicated by a number slightly to the right of the word MESSAGES in that first column.

YELLOW SQUARE – Moving over a little more to the right in the blue bar at the top of your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED in the far upper right hand corner you will see a blue and white representation of the globe of the world.

If there is a red square with a white number inside the square (also known as a bubble) dangling over the globe of the world icon, it means that you have notifications…not friend request notifications or message notifications, but all the rest of your notifications.

These notifications can be adjusted to include or not include things such as:

• Activity that involves you – You’ll always get notifications about activity that involves you, like when someone tags you in a photo or comments on your post.
• Close Friends activity – Choose whether you want to get notifications about Close Friends.
• Birthdays – Choose whether you want to get notifications about your friends’ birthdays.
• Your friends’ life events – Choose whether you want to get notifications when your friends post life events, like having a baby or getting married.
• Tags – Get notifications when you’re tagged.
• Followers – You can get notifications when people who aren’t your friends start following you and share, like or comment on your public posts.
• Pages you manage
• Group activity
• App requests and activity

PURPLE SQUARE – Moving down and to the left to the first column in the body of the page of your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED you will see the word POKES with a number next to it slightly to the right. The number indicates the number of times someone has POKED you. It isn’t the same kind of poke that Robert Duvall as Gus McCrae was referring to in Lonesome Dove! To learn more about poking, read To Poke Or Not To Poke, That Is The Question.

Understanding Your Facebook WALL

When you sign into your Facebook account at https://www.facebook.com/YOUR NAME you will be taken to a page called your Facebook WALL.

There’s a bar across the top of the screen which has all the same elements found on the bar across the top of the screen on your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED. There is also a HEADER PHOTO and AVATAR PHOTO (both shown with fuchsia arrows), and two columns below the HEADER PHOTO. Refer to the picture and notations to understand the elements I’m going to discuss about your Facebook WALL.

PURPLE SQUARE – Directly under the HEADER PHOTO is a white menu bar. The first tab listed on that menu bar is your TIMELINE. Your Facebook TIMELINE is the second column on the right found beneath the HEADER PHOTO and white menu bar.

Your Facebook TIMELINE is made up of all the postings made directly to your Facebook page on your Facebook WALL. The very top of that column is a blank box that asks the question, “What’s on your mind?” in light gray. When you type something in that box and click POST, it is called “Updating your status on Facebook”.

So in the picture of my Facebook WALL, my last status update was 5 hours ago and it said, “Happy Sexy Valentine’s Day!” with more words, emoticons and a picture of a man and woman covered in chocolate. Woohoo!

YELLOW ARROW – Everything beneath the PURPLE BOX as indicated with the YELLOW ARROW is your TIMELINE updates.

GREEN SQUARE – In the first column on the left under the HEADER PHOTO is 9 of your friends avatars. Slightly above their avatar pictures it indicates that these are your FRIENDS and the number next to it represents the number friends you have on your Facebook. The maximum number of friends you can have is 5000.

You can click on the word FRIENDS to be taken to a full list of your friends.

AQUA ARROW – The third option in the white menu bar directly under the HEADER PHOTO is FRIENDS. By clicking on the word FRIENDS, you will be taken to a full list of your friends just like you did by clicking on the word FRIENDS above all your friends avatar photos as indicated with the AQUA ARROW.

Immediately Recognized Differences Between FEED And WALL

There is a very easy way to immediately recognize whether you are on your Facebook FEED or WALL.

At first glance if you see your HEADER PHOTO and AVATAR PHOTO then you are on your Facebook WALL. You will be seeing everything that has been posted to your Facebook page.

However, if at first glance you see 3 columns with the middle one showing you some of the posts of your friends, then you are on your Facebook FEED which is also called the NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED.

Read Only The FEED?

Now I’m going to tell you the whole reason I have taken the time to write this post and explain the differences between the Facebook WALL and the Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED.

Drum roll please!

If you ONLY read the Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED you will NOT see all your friends Facebook status posts.

Let me say that again…

If you ONLY read the Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED you will NOT see all your friends Facebook status posts.

Let me say it in a different way…

You are not going to know what the last status update is of every one of your friends if you only read the Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED.

When Aunt SuziQ updates her status with “I just made big fat fluffy biscuits, so come on over and get some while they are hot!” and Uncle RogerDodger updates his status with “I just fixed the old Chevy’s engine,” Facebook will decide if either one of them is important enough to put in your Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED. Facebook may decide to only show you the last post of Cousin Paulina that stated, “I’m going to see a whole flock of sheep get sheered today!”

If you ONLY read the Facebook NEWS FEED or ACTIVITY FEED, you will not have any clue that big fat fluffy biscuits are waiting for you at Aunt SuziQ’s house!

The ONLY way you are going to see EVERY post by a specific friend is to go to THEIR Facebook WALL. You can do that by typing their name in the big blank white box with the light gray words “SEARCH FACEBOOK” at the top of the page in the blue menu bar.

Now…

Does that make sense?

Do you understand why you didn’t get any of Aunt SuziQ’s biscuits and I Uncle RogerDodger ate all of them?

Obviously, if you have 5000 friends, you can’t visit the WALL of every single one of them. Maybe a solution would be to read your FEED and then visit the WALLS of the people you really want to know everything they are posting. If I were you, I’d make sure to always check Aunt SuziQ’s WALL. You never know when she’ll bake more big fluffy biscuits.