News feed stories are ranked so that new stories appear above previously viewed stories for users of a social networking system. Top news stories are selected by the social networking system based on a ranking algorithm that incorporates an analysis of affinities for interests, users, and entities in the social networking system based on user interactions. Other new stories are provided after the top new stories in a chronological order. For each user of the social networking system, a view state is recorded that includes the order of news feed stories provided to users. Based on the view state and received user input, the social networking system may determine whether to provide new news feed stories to a viewing user.