Avoiding Friends on Facebook

Ok, yes I know the idea behind Facebook is to find friends and be connected.  So you joined Facebook to connect with relatives and friends, and just when you think you are done you have more friend requests.  Then you friend acquaintances, and before you know it your News Feed is jammed with a lot of stuff you don’t care about.  If that sounds like your News Feed it is time to hide from some of these “friends”.

Now, how do you hide News Feed posts  from someone without their knowledge so you don’t hurt their feelings?

The simplest way to ban someone from your News Feed, and they will never know, is to go to their Profile or Timeline, click on the Friends button (the one with the check mark and next to the Message button), and click on the Show in News Feed option from the dropdown.  Clicking on items in this dropdown will add or remove the check mark.  In this case a check mark indicates updates will show, no check mark means they won’t show.  No muss no fuss!

If that is too drastic and you don’t want to ban all posts from this friend in your News Feed, this dropdown also allows you to select which type of updates you want to appear in your News Feed.  Additionally the dropdown also gives you the opportunity to Unfriend.  If you do unfriend your former friend does not get a notification but they will find out they are no longer your friend if they try to visit your Profile/Timeline.

An alternative way to trim your News Feed is to click in the top right corner of a post on your News Feed.  The dropdown will give you choices to Unsubscribe, or to receive All Updates, Most Updates, or Only Important Updates.  Facebook is deciding here what is important or what to not show based upon its own algorithm.  For more control over what updates to receive, use the method from a friend’s Profile/Timeline described above.

Don’t forget that your News Feed has a Most Recent and Top Stories Sort or filter (top right corner of your News Feed).   It is likely you have already missed some of your friend’s posts anyway.   If you are interested in what you’ve missed, the best way to review all posts from a particular friend is to go directly to their Profile or Timeline.

Now, what if you don’t want your friends to see your posts? Then you want to add them to your Restricted List.  By doing so, they will only see posts that you share publicly.  Navigate to Privacy Settings, Blocked People and Apps, click on Manage Blocking,  and then click on Edit List from  Add Friends to your Restricted List.  They will never know!