Facebook is one of the most commonly used social media platforms in the world. But a new survey has revealed that a majority of Americans haven't quite figured out the site's news feed function.
According to a Pew Research Center survey, released Tuesday, 53 percent of U.S. adults on Facebook say they do not understand how the social platform's news feed works.
Older Facebook users have even more trouble navigating the function, with only 38 percent of users over 50 saying they possess a good understanding of why posts appear on the page, compared to 59 percent of users between 18 to 29 years old.
"Notable shares of Facebook users ages 18 and older lack a clear understanding of how the site's news feed operates, feel ordinary users have little control over what appears there, and have not actively tried to influence the content the feed delivers to them," Pew Research said, citing their study.
Although Facebook allows users to customize their own news feeds, only 14 percent of users surveyed feel they have a lot of control over the content that's posted, while 28 percent believe they have no control whatsoever.
"They don't feel like they have a lot of agency or control over the content that they are getting and many of them have not actively attempted to change or shift that content. That's particularly true for older users," said Aaron Smith, Pew's associate director of research on internet and technology issues, reported USA Today.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal has also sparked privacy concerns among Facebook's users, with over 40 percent saying they have deliberately taken time off social media.
"Users of all ages were pretty much more likely to say they have taken a break at some point in time over the last year," Smith said.
4,594 adults in America were surveyed for the study, conducted between May 29 and June 11. Of those, 3,413 were Facebook users.
Earlier this year, Facebook users complained that the news feed has increasingly become less personal, which prompted the company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg to promise an adjustment so users would see more photos and posts from family and friends.
Zuckerberg claimed the changes would "encourage meaningful interactions between people."
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