Twitter will soon let you see your timeline in logical, chronological order again

Tired of old tweets appearing in your timeline 'in case you missed them'? Good news – Twitter will soon allow you to revert back to the old chronological timeline, with no roundups of messages posted while you were offline.

The update will roll out over the next few weeks. Once it does, just uncheck the settings box marked 'Show the best tweets first'.

Previously, changing this option had limited effect; Twitter would still surface older tweets that went viral while you were away, and tweets liked by people you follow. Now these will all vanish, and your feed will return to the way it looked pre-2016, when Twitter implemented its recommendation algorithm.

In case you missed it...

“We’ve learned that when showing the best Tweets first, people find Twitter more relevant and useful. However, we've heard feedback from people who at times prefer to see the most recent Tweets," Twitter said.

"Our goal with the timeline is to balance showing you the most recent Tweets with the best Tweets you’re likely to care about, but we don’t always get this balance right.  So, we’re working on providing you with an easily accessible way to switch between a timeline of Tweets that are most relevant for you and a timeline of the latest Tweets. You’ll see us test this in the coming weeks."  

While Facebook struggles to make its algorithmically generated timelines balanced, and relevant, it's interesting to see Twitter taking the opposite approach, giving users the option to eliminate the automated suggestions completely. The option to revert to chronological view is a welcome change, and makes sense for a site that works almost like a chat room when at its liveliest and best.

• Twitter tests a feature that suggests accounts to unfollow

Via The Verge