I had an account on Facebook with nothing on it and no friends for a few years, I think I started it so I could look for someone. Anyway, when I retired at the beginning of the month I decided to use it to keep in contact with a few former co-workers.
Now I get what everyone is complaining about.
Why do people feel the need to post non-personal glurge all the time, or to forward “news” stories that promote their agenda but otherwise have no connection to themselves? I (naively) thought that Facebook was about one’s personal life and events.
I guess I have to start organizing my 19 “friends” into groups so that I don’t have to see all that crap all the time. I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.
I’m late to the party, I know. Mundanely and pointlessly late.
Just go to their profile and uncheck “following” so their stuff doesn’t go to your feed.
I do also have one group that I simply labeled “real friends” of which 80% of my friends list is included, but when I click on that, it includes people from out of town that the regular newsfeed excludes, and IIRC, a lot fewer feed ads with those “suggested posts.” Oh, plus none of the posts from your “liked” commercial stuff. Like my regular news feed gets stuff from musicians I follow, and Cracked, and The Onion, and local news. The “real friends” feed excludes all that.
There must be, because my first thought was, “what notifications?”
I do get a few, I get emails when I get tagged or mentioned in someone else’s post. I think that’s about it unless facebook contacts me directly about security setting changes or something. I also have a separate email address I use for all my social media.
So, noodling around I find:
Drop down arrow on farthest top right - click that
Drop down menu that follows, “Settings” - click that
Now you’re in “General Account Settings” and menu list along left margin, “Notifications” - click that
And there is a whole list of things you can change settings for, including email.
The little gray arrow in the top right of a post is very important. Use it for 4 things:
If you post to a thread that keeps getting replies and you’re tired of being notified every time someone else replies, click the arrow and choose “Turn Off Notifications.” (Especially useful for congratulatory threads.
If someone posts something you don’t want to see - a big spider, a poopy baby, an aborted fetus, a sick dog, Glenn Beck’s face - use the arrow and choose “I don’t want to see this.” It’ll hide that particular post from your feed and not permanently do anything to your friend’s ability to show up on your newsfeed.
But if they keep posting that shit, use the arrow and choose “Unfollow [friend]” without having to go to their timeline to do so.
The most important thing is using the arrow to stop game notifications and links from places you don’t want to see. If you see someone post something about Candy Crush, use your arrow to “Hide all from Candy Crush.” You can do this for any game. You can also do this from any link source. If someone shares something from “Stupid Thing I Hate” you can use the arrow to “Hide all from Stupid Thing I Hate.”
You can undo anything you do with the arrow, so try it out! It makes Facebook much less frustrating. If they didn’t have this feature, Facebook would be a ghost town after the Great Bitstrips Reckoning of 2013.
The good thing about Facebook is that people can find you. The bad thing about Facebook is that people can find you. So far the goods have outweighed the bads, but the bads have been horrid.
