Facebook was once the most obvious place for connecting with friends. Over the years, though the platform slowly became an environment packed with content, from videos to marketplace listings to recommended posts, algorithms manipulated all. Now, in a move that feels like returning to the early years of Facebook, a dedicated Friends tab is being resurrected. It is moving away from Meta’s recent emphasis on content discovery, as the company is returning to the principles that created the basis of Facebook, which focused on true personal relationships.
In an attempt to return to its original mission of connecting users with their friends, Facebook has revealed an updated Friends tab. The initiative is a subset of the broader vision for “Meta” to bring back the experience one would typically associate with “OG Facebook,” where the focus was on connecting people instead of algorithm-driven recommendations.
New Friends Tab Offers
The new Friends tab will display only updates from friends, including their posts, Reels, stories, birthdays, and friend requests. This is a huge difference from how the tab used to function, which focused primarily on a view of friend requests and suggested connections. For now, the feature will only roll out in the U.S. and Canada, at least for some time.
Addressing Changing Expectations of Users
As Facebook struggles to keep its younger users using the site, Meta, the parent company, has begun to revive the personal, friend-focused experience that Facebook initially had. Most of the younger people are now using apps like Instagram and TikTok, both focused on short-term videos, rather than traditional feeds driven by algorithms on social network sites. Thus, Facebook is continuing its study on redesigns. One of the redesigns occurred in October of 2024 and involved stressing community groups and video-related content as an appeal to Gen Z.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s Q4 earnings call that a “return to OG Facebook” was part of his key goals for 2025. He said,
“I think there are a lot of opportunities to make [Facebook] way more culturally influential than it is today. I think some of this will get back to how Facebook was originally used back in the day.”
Facebook’s Evolution
In a blog post by the company, it declared that the initial spirit of friend-based interactions has been lost as Facebook has evolved towards experiences like Groups, Video, and Marketplace. The post states,
“Over the years, Facebook evolved to meet changing needs and created best-in-class experiences across Groups, Video, Marketplace and more, but the magic of friends has fallen away.”
This new tab should help restore the site’s essential social networking capability, so it can more easily facilitate interaction with personal connections rather than suggest content.
Access and Customize Friends Tab
Access to the Friends tab is now available through Facebook’s Home Feed navigation bar and in the app’s Bookmarks section. To make it easier to find, users can pin the tab to their Home Feed by following these simple steps: Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Tab Bar, Customize the tab bar, and Pin the Friends tab for easy access.
Future Developments
This won’t be the only update to the Friends tab. It is just the first of many changes that will happen as Meta rejuvenates the original value of Facebook’s social networking. There will still be changes in 2025 that will all work towards enabling real connections and enhancing user engagement on the platform.
Returning to the roots is a bold yet necessary move for a company like Facebook. Nowadays, social media is all about algorithmic feeds and short-form videos. Engagement value has overtaken emotional and psychological connection, making the user feel exhausted. By bringing back its Friends tab, Facebook doesn’t simply reinstate a feature of the past; it recognizes a core truth that people want real, personal interactions online.
