You may not use it, but Facebook's Stories feature has been experiencing "explosive growth," the tech giant said on Tuesday.

"I'm confident Stories are going to be the primary way people share," said Adam Mosseri, Facebook's head of News Feed.

Mosseri talked up the Stories feature at Facebook's F8 developer conference, at a time when the company is revamping the service. In January, the company decided to start showing more posts from family and friends over Facebook's News Feed, and reduce content like articles and videos from big brands, businesses and media organizations.

"We know these changes have been painful for many of you," said Facebook vice president Dan Rose while speaking to an audience of developers and publishers at the conference. Nevertheless, Facebook executives said that the company has been moving away from promoting the mere "consumption" of content to building connections among people.

To build those connections, Facebook is trying to elevate content that tends to generate more comments from users. According to the company's own data, photos or status updates of people's friends elicit the most exchanges, whereas links or videos from Facebook pages generate the least interaction.

That's why the company is bullish on its Facebook Stories feature, despite some early tepid reception. The feature lets you share a slideshow collection of photos or videos to your friends and was added to the main Facebook app last year.

Mosseri didn't give specific numbers around the growth. But during his talk at F8, he said his company has been experimenting with improving certain Facebook functions with the Stories feature. For instance, profile pictures can perhaps become more than just a photo, but an entire collection of digital pictures, he said.

In the future, users might also send birthday greetings to friends or family using Facebook Stories too. "What if you could help people tell a collaborative story together to celebrate their friends?" Mosseri said.

Where this might leave big brands and publishers isn't totally clear. But don't be surprised if Facebook tries to entice you to share more videos and photos over its app. The company is already publicly experimenting letting Facebook users contribute Stories centered on groups and events, Mosseri said.