The attached article from TechCrunch says that Facebook's feed is optimized around engagement, which makes it focus on sensational news. The problem is sensational news is often depressing, so this is the main reason why there is a linear relationship between how much you use Facebook and how depressed you are.
That being said, I've tried every other service and I believe there is no better service for news if you know how to optimize your feed. And I know many of you use it to keep up with your families. So in addition to work reasons (I'm a social media coordinator), you wont see me leaving Facebook anytime soon.
If you want to "optimize" your own profile for news and not negativity, here is how:
Do not allow yourself to click or interact sensational posts and ideally no political posts as the algorithm will read this. Political news is never good news.
Unfollow negative friends, trolls, or even de-friend them.
If you have someone who trolls you but you want to remain friends, set your statuses to the "Friends, Except X" privacy setting. The troll wont see your statuses anymore
Follow specialty news sites selectively. National news sites are off-limits as they only post negative news. Even TechCrunch is basically always negative in their editorials, so i unfollow them.
Use the "See First" command to make Facebook show you every post from your favorite Blogs
Don't comment on other people's posts to argue. You'll just keep getting notifications all day long that you disagree with. Just keep scrolling
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/04/when-you-look-into-the-news-feed-the-news-feed-looks-into-you/