I was looking on the right side of my main Facebook newsfeed and noticed a bunch of new icons for a soccer ball, wiggly arrow, and more. What are these Facebook icons for?
Facebook is constantly tweaking and fiddling with its interface and there are definitely new things that just show up without warning or discussion, but I suspect that what you’re seeing has been there for a while, it’s just something you noticed for the first time.
Keeping in mind that Facebook’s philosophy is that you should never have to leave the site for any reason, it’ll make sense that all of the icons are various news and game trending topics. I mean, who needs a newspaper when Facebook is keeping track of what’s happening in the world, right? 🙂
Still, let’s have a look. First off, here’s what I think you’re talking about:
You can see that Legendary Pokemon is the #1 trending news story. Who would have thought!
Still, the icons adjacent are for different categories of trending news, as you can ascertain by moving your cursor over the icon in question:
In fact, you can do that with the games icons too:
There’s a much more important icon to know, however. The downward angle bracket rightmost on the Games icons. Click on it and there’s a very helpful feature:
Don’t care about games and game updates, trending games, etc? Choose “Hide” and that box will vanish.
Meanwhile, trending news topics are simply broken down by category. Here’s the latest sports news according to Facebook:
And entertainment news:
Now you know. Nothing earth-shattering, but useful if you want to quick peek and see what’s trending in the world of Facebook and its billion plus users!
I feel so much happier now I understand all this. Thanks!