A social data feed, comprising a set of data items submitted by individuals in a social network, may be presented to the user, but the frequency of new data items appearing in the social data feed may be overwhelming, and may cause the user to miss data items that may be of interest. Instead, potentially interesting data items may be selected and peripherally presented to the user, e.g., as a tiled set of thumbnail images presented near the right edge of the display, adjusted for low contrast with the display background. Peripheral presentation may suggest potentially interesting data items to the user, thereby promoting serendipitous discovery of interesting data items, while reducing the distraction of the user while viewing the social data feed. Metadata of an interesting data item may be displayed upon user selection (e.g., pointer hovering), and interesting content items within a selected data item may be highlighted.