I wrote this in a previous HN post that talked about Facebook. I sit on the opposite side of the scale: My Facebook account is quite nice; I've got friends from all over the world (I've lived in 7 different cities throughout Europe and the Americas in my 40 years of life) and my Facebook feed/network makes it possible for me to see where are they now, what are they up to, and when one of them has a kid in Serbia, or another has some milestone in Chicago I get to cheer them. The last post was about a cousin that just had his first solo airplane flight! I haven't seen him in like 5 years, but still it is nice to tell him "wow, that's great!".
When people say that their Facebook stream is "very angry", it seems to me that it is mainly a reflection of the network that they happen to be part of.
I think the biggest problem with FB right now is the way they force groups content into your feed. It's way, way overdone. Back when people joined those groups they were smaller and more focused and people were hoping to get occasional updates on some topic they're interested in.
Now it's at least half your feed if you don't trim the groups and your actual friends get lost in the noise. I'm sure FB has some data about engagement or some such, but they should remember why people use their service and refocus.
That's what I meant by "it has gotten too big for its original purpose" - keeping up with friends is what Facebook was built for, and it's great at that.
It's awesome if your network is still like that. For me, it becomes hard to filter out the widely shared & "angry" content some people share - it just propagates so easily.
When people say that their Facebook stream is "very angry", it seems to me that it is mainly a reflection of the network that they happen to be part of.