- Viewing Updates in the News Feed
- Viewing Status Updates
- Responding to Status Updates
Viewing Status Updates
The News Feed consists of status updates made by your friends and by company and celebrity pages you’ve liked on Facebook. It also includes posts from Face-book groups you’ve joined, as well as the occasional advertisement.
View a Status Update
Each status update in your News Feed consists of several distinct components.
- The poster’s profile picture appears in the top-left corner.
The poster’s name appears at the top of the post, beside the profile picture. To view more information about this person, mouse over his or her name; to view the poster’s Timeline page, click the person’s name.
- When the item was posted (how many minutes or hours or days ago) is displayed beneath the poster’s name.
- The content of the status update appears under the top portion of the post. This can include text, images, or a video.
Links to like, comment on, and share this post appear after the post content.
View Links to Web Pages
Many status updates include links to interesting web pages. You can click a link to view the web page posted by your friend.
- The title of the linked-to web page appears under the normal status update text. Click the title to display the linked-to web page in a new tab of your web browser.
Many links include images from the linked-to page, as well as a short description of the page’s content.
View Photos
It’s common for Facebook users to post photos they’ve taken with their smartphones or digital cameras. These photos appear as part of the status update.
The photo appears in the body of the status update.
- If more than one photo is posted, they may appear in a tiled collage or in side-scrolling display.
- To view a larger version of any picture, click the photo in the post.
This displays the photo within its own lightbox—a special window superimposed over the News Feed. To close the photo lightbox, click the X in the upper-right corner.
View Videos
Many Facebook users post their own home movies so their friends can view them.
A thumbnail image from the video appears in the body of the status update, with a “play” arrow superimposed on top of the image. Many videos start playing automatically when the post is viewed. For those that don’t, click the image to play the video.
- If the video plays with the sound muted, mouse over the video to display the playback controls and then click the Volume (speaker) button and adjust the volume.
- To pause playback, mouse over the video and then click the Pause button.
To view the video full screen, click the full screen button.