Facebook memories now includes 'milestones' you never knew existed

On This Day is one of the social network’s most divisive features

Facebook has made changes to On This Day, which will result in users being notified about more and more updates and “milestones”.

The social network has expanded the feature so it doesn’t just resurface posts from the same date a year or more ago.

It will now also remind you of posts from the month or season that’s just gone by, similar to the recap it does at the end of each year. You’ll be able to share these on your profile, if you wish to.

That’s not all. You’ll also receive “celebratory” notifications when you “make a notable number of friends on Facebook, and when your friends have liked your posts”. These aren’t shareable yet, but will be in the future.

“We plan to launch more messages like this in the next few months,” said Facebook product manager Oren Hod.

On This Day is one of the social network’s most divisive features, with some users finding it annoying and others enjoying its daily reminders.

However, near-constant reminders for things you posted recently, and meaningless notifications about “milestones” you don’t actually care about could get extremely annoying, extremely quickly.

One useful bit of functionality Facebook has rolled out as part of the update is the ability to easily let it know that you don’t want to be reminded of a certain memory.

“We’ve received input from people over the past two years and have worked to improve On This Day, such as making controls and preferences easier to access,” added Mr Hod.

“Finally, we know that occasionally there are some memories that may spark negative feelings that you would rather avoid. We’ve invested a lot in developing ways to filter content that will select photos we believe may be the most relevant and enjoyable to you.”

Facebook users have long been able to filter memories by person or by date, but the options weren’t immediately obvious.