Is anything more annoying during your daily internet browsing than the sudden, invited sound suddenly blasting from your speakers? Especially when you can’t figure out which tab from which the sound is coming? Facebook is not going to help you with that problem.
Get ready to be assaulted with sounds while scrolling through your timeline. Facebook’s autoplay videos will soon begin playing with the sound on, according to an announcement from the social network. That sound will fade in and out, as you scroll past certain videos and come upon new ones. But depending on what’s on your timeline, that could still result in a rather consistent stream of sound coming at you, whether on your computer or mobile device.
This doesn’t seem like a feature for which anyone asked. Previously, sound would play when you clicked on the video. But Facebook says it’s giving the people what they want. Hey, those YouTube clips you watch were automatically playing sound already, and you were OK with that, right?
“As people watch more video on phones, they’ve come to expect sound when the volume on their device is turned on. After testing sound on in News Feed and hearing positive feedback, we’re slowly bringing it to more people. With this update, sound fades in and out as you scroll through videos in News Feed, bringing those videos to life.
If your phone is set to silent, videos will not play with sound. If you never want videos to play with sound, you can disable this feature by switching off “Videos in News Feed Start With Sound” in Settings.”
OK, so the sound can be disabled. But it’s yet another thing users have to go into Settings and change, which is something of a hassle, even if it can be done relatively easily. (Get ready for your parents to ask you to help them with this.)
Does that mean sound from a Facebook video will interrupt music or a podcast that you may already have playing on your phone. The Verge asked Facebook that very question and was told that the video sound would default to whatever sound was already playing.
But in the very near future, you may have to be more careful while scrolling through Facebook while in a meeting, attending a class, or in the company of friends and family. (On the other hand, maybe this could help end a date that was going badly, if necessary.) Setting your phone on vibrate could become very important.
According to Facebook, this new feature will be rolled out “slowly,” but plans are for it to be available for all users by the end of the year. So be prepared.
[Recode]
