This was taken from the opening statement of Facebook Q4 and Full 2017 earnings report:

“Already last quarter, we made changes to show fewer viral videos to make sure people’s time is well spent. In total, we made changes that reduced time spent on Facebook by roughly 50 million hours every day. By focusing on meaningful connections, our community and business will be stronger over the long term.”

Facebook says they do that to encourage meaningful connections between people rather than passive consumption of content. So our time is well spent.

That's great. And I completely agree with that. It's also a social responsibility for a social networking site to do so. Much like it is for a car company to work on reducing the carbon footprint of its car.

But the scary part is that we're not in control at all of what we consume, how we consume it and how much time in our day it grabs. Facebook pulls levers and cut 50 million hours of content consumption/day. And it seems effortless. We're not in control at all.