At some point in time, we’ve all found ourselves perusing our Facebook timelines while endlessly staring at every tasty cooking trailer and Cash Me Outside remix there is going. Whether you’re stuck on a crowded metro during rush hour or trying to power through the insipid weekly team meeting (yes we’re really going to discuss our company-wide printer policy, again) – Facebook video has always been your saviour.
This time around, however, Facebook has added an extra functionality – allowing for videos to have sound – which would mean you’re going to have to invest in a pair of headphones. As you scroll down your feed, videos will initially appear mute and then grow increasingly louder, with eventually playing at normal volume. Thankfully, if your phone is on silent or vibrate mode, then videos won’t play with sound.
Keep in mind that video auto-play will not be available to users logging onto Facebook from their desktop computers.
This new feature is part of Facebook’s initiative to create better quality video content, while leaning towards eventually monetising a lot of the content found on its platform. This functionality also allows for publishers creating content to not invest in creating subtitles for their videos – previously a necessary addition when watching those videos without any sound.
If you’d much rather keep your video viewing discreet, you could always just opt out of this function under the settings tab, rendering all your videos mute, allowing you to silently chortle at yet another silly video meme at your family dinner.