“Inherently — as much as Paper has tried to transition into a Flipboard-esque magazine scroll-through that says otherwise — Facebook is known as a vertical feed of important things happening in the lives of those we follow. Paper’s functions involves swiping horizontally instead of scrolling, which is a different concept altogether.” —Beena Raghavendran
When I first downloaded the Facebook Paper app earlier this month, I was blown away. My thoughts: Oh my God, this interface is so clean! Oh my God, I can swipe story-by-story through my entire newsfeed! Oh my God, I just swipe down to move the story back in its place! Oh my God, when I swipe to the left, I can see news and major headlines and everything I’d ever want!
Yet Paper fell out of Apple’s top 100 free apps this week, Mashable reported, after less than a month on the market. And I, too, found myself stopping using Paper and going back to the good ol’ standard Facebook app.
While Paper is cool and has all the bells and whistles I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg has dreamed about, it’s not Facebook. Inherently — as much as Paper has tried to transition into a Flipboard-esque magazine scroll-through that says otherwise — Facebook is known as a vertical feed of important things happening in the lives of those we follow. Paper’s functions involves swiping horizontally instead of scrolling, which is a different concept altogether. In effect, this changes the orientation of the networking site we all know.
That was the thing. With Paper, Facebook doesn’t feel like Facebook anymore. The downward scroll has become so important in social media — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Snapchat use it — so that without it, Paper seems foreign. I’m not scrolling through my Facebook but flipping through a magazine. It’s not the same.
Yes, Paper is beautiful. It’s smooth to swipe through, and it emphasizes photos (the main attraction on Facebook nowadays), which pop on its newsfeed. It’s a bit overwhelming to remember the different swipe patterns necessary to view the different features of Paper, but it’s a pretty natural swipe movement and allows you to add further categories, such as “Headlines,” “Exposure” and “Flavor,” to view news, photography and food articles as well as photos.
The app is beautiful and any person who loves neat apps should get it. But for functionality’s sake, and out of habit and preference for the orientation and scrolling features instead of the swiping, I’ll stick to the regular Facebook app most of the time.
[ READ MORE: Changing with the times: A look at how Facebook and its users have evolved ]
