'Did You Know' Is Facebook's Way To Help You Know Your Friends Better, In A Nostalgic Approach

Facebook announced it was releasing 'Did You Know', a feature which allows users to answer pre-written questions which their friends and followers can then see.

The feature allows users to share thoughtful and personal details with their friends. From questions about preferred superpowers, guilty pleasures, hidden talents, secret loyalties and others, they are designed to be straightforward.

To use the feature, users just need to open a new status, and under the list of things they can add to the status (such as requests for recommendations or location tags), there is an option called "Answer a Question." It can also be accessed from users' profile, or by using the the "Try It" button on a friend's post

Clicking or tapping on this option will open a box where users will see a question to answer. Once they've chosen a question they want to answer, they can choose the background color, include status, and then post it.

The feature doesn't only populates the News Feed, but also shows up in a box below the photos on a user's profile.

While users can certainly choose to opt out of having these shared with their friends, the idea is to help users get to know their social friends a little better.

This is like Facebook in having that nostalgic moment. The social network has grown so large that sharing classic things like that won't feel anymore magical on the web.

It's something informal, and somehow forgotten by the looks of how the social media network are all about sharing videos and images, as well as memes among others. With almost no one is doing that status chains anymore, Facebook is reviving it, in its own way.

The difference here is that, the feature doesn't have that same informal social element.

But still, "Did You Know" is how Facebook wants users to share more about themselves on its platform. With random questions, it has no goal of making conversation or discussion; it's just to make people share more and more, spending more time on Facebook.

Available to all Facebook users on iOS, Android, and web, it's taking people back away to the old moments, away from status updates, sharing articles, videos and photos. With so many of Facebook’s efforts to change how people customize their profiles have seemed to get buried in the clutter, "Did You Know", given by the phrase, should play a bit nicer given its visibility.

Here are some of other questions that Facebook said could pop up in the "Did You Know” section: