I'm Not That FB Friendly, Really ...

[easysurfer]

I finally got around to tidying up my FB friend list. Mainly, putting some friends in the acquaintance category. I don't have a ton of FB friend so the tidying up is manageable.

For those who use Facebook (FB), you know who you are , if you have a lot, I mean a LOT of FB friends, how to you manage?

I've seen some folks (not scammers) that have over 1000 FB friends. One of my FB friends has over 3000.

If you have a lot, wouldn't your friend feed be overwhelmed with people posting stuff like what they ate or vacation pictures and birthday wishes?

I don't have a bunch and already feel that there's too much stuff that gets inflicted for me to see .

I expect there will be replies about how folks don't like and don't use FB. I admire you. But for those who do, how to you manage if you have a ton of friends on FB?

 

[RunningBum]

If friends are posting stuff I don't care for, or just too much, I snooze them for 30 days or unfollow them. That keeps my feed manageable.

 

[RunningBum]

Mainly, putting some friends in the acquaintance category.

What does this mean? If this a facebook classification?

 

[easysurfer]

If friends are posting stuff I don't care for, or just too much, I snooze them for 30 days or unfollow them. That keeps my feed manageable.

What does this mean? If this a facebook classification?

I do the snooze of some too. Haven't unfollowed as my friend list isn't that large. Even snoozing, if someone has 1000+ friends, I'd still think there'd be lots of them waking up for the snooze and that'll be difficult to manage.

Unless maybe if a person quickly accepts a person to not appear rude, then quickly unfollows.

As for the acquaintance, that's one of FB's default friend classifications. I use that because when classified as such, folks there can only see common friends and not all friends on my friend list.

 

[pacergal]

Right after retirement, I had a ton of folks from work "friend" me, and I accepted. It became overwhelming. I took a break fromFB and when I rejoined, I limited my list.
Now, I simply snooze for 30 days if someone seems to post too much. Easier to handle.
Although, my feed is overwhelmed with that stupid advertising! But, thats how they make their $, so if I want to use the product, gotta deal with it.

 

[bltkmt]

I enjoy people posting vacation pictures and birthday wishes - that is what FB is good at.

 

[Aerides]

I might have 40 or 50 facebook friends? And half them I don't even like or barely remember from HS and such. I almost never go on so I don't know for sure. The whole platform is a stupid mess and I have no interest in anything that I might see there if it's only there.

 

[LarryMelman]

What does this mean? If this a facebook classification?

FB used to support "friend lists" where you could control who saw your posts based on shared interests, or family vs. high-school vs. real friends, etc. The acquaintance list was a predefined friend list, and they also claimed that posts from acquaintances would get lower priority in your news feed.

They dropped friend lists in about 2016 but I think the acquaintance list still exists somehow.

Honestly I have unfollowed most of my FB friends. My news feed only shows me stuff from businesses or government agencies (National Parks, etc.). I turned off the automated birthday announcements, but that doesn't block the posts from mommies posting ridiculous birthday tributes to their three-year-olds, or announcing their anniversaries to the world. Or the pro-vaxxers/anti-vaxxers. Easier to just unfollow them all.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I currently have 82 "friends" and are mostly folks I served with in the Air Force. I don't really use Facebook for nothing more than following a couple of groups that interest me (a couple of travel groups, a couple airplane groups, etc.) and don't post anything on my page. I have the page on "lock down" so only friends of friends can request my "friendship" and I also use a pseudonym for further restriction. Last point is I *only* use it on my desktop computer in the incognito mode...I refuse to install it on any of my mobile devices.

 

[Amethyst]

I find it weird that 12 of my FB "friends" have died so far, but nobody takes down their pages.

 

[MichaelB]

I find it weird that 12 of my FB "friends" have died so far, but nobody takes down their pages.

That’s awkward, especially when FB sends out a message on their birthday saying “give a birthday message to so and so” and they’ve been gone for a couple of years.

 

[VanWinkle]

If friends are posting stuff I don't care for, or just too much, I snooze them for 30 days or unfollow them. That keeps my feed manageable.

+1

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I find it weird that 12 of my FB "friends" have died so far, but nobody takes down their pages.

They have an option to make it a "memorial page" (and there is a setting available for a user to set up an alternate user to manage it when the user goes off the grid permanently) so folks can still share memories, etc. A few of my friends have passed and it is nice to see an occasional post remembering them.

On that subject, most estate plans should also have some sort of provision for managing social media accounts after passing. I personally think that's a good idea. My page will disappear after death.

More info from Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143/

 

[Kerfuffle]

When I used facebook, I unfollowed everyone I friended immediately. You can unfollow but stay friends, and still go look at their pages when the mood strikes. Eventually I realized Facebook was sucking value away from my life and quit it altogether. Much more peaceful without it.

 

[Amethyst]

I unfollowed a FB friend who posts endless ravings from ultra-right-wing web sites (the COVID vaccine will implant a chip in your arm) and wacko "nutrition" claims (coconut oil cures Alzheimers).

Trouble was, she had those posts set to "public," so they still popped up in my feed. And she shares at least 20 a day. I had to unfriend her; a shame, since we shared some other interests, and her personal-life posts were fun.

 

[RunningBum]

I use the FB Purity browser extension, which blocks a lot of ads and other stuff you might not want to see. You can even set keywords that keeps a post from showing on your feed if the word is in the post.

 

[RetMD21]

An elderly second cousin had FB birthday congratulations after he died. Sad. To be fair, he didn't post much during the last couple of years in his life.

 

[njhowie]

DD has 1300 FB friends
DW has 900 FB friends
I have 13 FB friends

 

[Markola]

I went cold turkey on FB for about 4 years, then recently started using the rather good FB Marketplace tool to sell stuff, which exposes me to some of the regular FB feed when I open the app, so I scan the first couple of entries. Even after culling the Friends list to people I actually like, I have had enough after the first couple of entries, usually by people who post every day.

 

[big-papa]

I initially got onto FB to keep track of my siblings (there are many) and extended family since I don't get to see them that often. Then I made the mistake of accepting friend requests from college friends, high school friends, people from church, etc. Except for family and some true personal friends, I've unfollowed everybody else but keep them as friends.

I have a number of privacy and other settings in place including:
- only friends of friends can send me a friend request. I still get the occasional, obvious scam friend request because some of my friends aren't as picky about who they accept.
- nobody can see my friends list except me. It dramatically reduces the chances of my account being cloned. If they can't see my friends list it kinda makes it pointless for them to create a copy of my account and send new friends requests to my friends from it.
- only friends can look me up via my email address
- search engines outside of FB can't link to my account
- nobody can write directly on my wall, but can only comment on threads I start
- I have one person whom I'm still friends with, but there's a setting that prevents them from automatically seeing any of my posts if they're following me. Individual sees everything, and I mean everything, through a political lens and must comment.

I also have "Social Fixer" installed on my brower. Was especially helpful during the election season at blocking all things political, but also does a good job on other ads as well and can be customized.

Cheers

 

[Midpack]

I knew there was a reason we use an alias on FB and avoid “friends” altogether. I communicate with friends directly using texts, emails and phone - not sure what we’re missing.

We’re only on FB to follow our private neighborhood page and some businesses that only have a presence on FB (no website).

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Social Fixer was good, but IIRC the author isn't maintaining it any longer, and that's important because Farcebook is constantly changing their code. I use Fluff Busting (FB) Purity, it does a great job blocking ads and sorting the feed and notifications chronologically instead of by profit.

I also use friend lists, and unfollow people whose posts I have to keep skipping over, but with over 600 friends I rely more on notifications of new posts for my closest friends than reading the feed. Unfortunately, those are unreliable, but it's better than nothing. (If you check your friendship with people, you can mark people as favorites, and you're supposed to get notified of all their activity.)

 

[Mykle57]

Use FB daily, mostly from my phone. Keep my friends list very short and unfriend or ... those that generate content I'm uninterested in.
What I use mostly are FB groups for my interests. Its similar to this type of forum, but a little easier to navigate and post and add pictures. Groups like other types of forums need active administrators to keep out the junk and abusive posts, like our admins here.
Now if I can just get fewer cat videos in my feed...

 

[MichealKnight]

To each his own, but I'm a fuddy-duddy who really dislikes Social Media and I wish it would have never been created. But to each his own.

And I admit - I have ONE social media account - it's a fake name on Facebook. I do 3 things with it:

1.)See DW's kid pics that she posts.

2.)Amex Platimun Card group to get tips on points, discounts, etc.

3.)MASH discussion group - it's nice to talk old shows that I still love, and it seems a few of us are like minded in that we probably want to buy a piece of lawn, an instruct people to get off of it

 

[easysurfer]

Social Fixer was good, but IIRC the author isn't maintaining it any longer, and that's important because Farcebook is constantly changing their code. I use Fluff Busting (FB) Purity, it does a great job blocking ads and sorting the feed and notifications chronologically instead of by profit.

I also use friend lists, and unfollow people whose posts I have to keep skipping over, but with over 600 friends I rely more on notifications of new posts for my closest friends than reading the feed. Unfortunately, those are unreliable, but it's better than nothing. (If you check your friendship with people, you can mark people as favorites, and you're supposed to get notified of all their activity.)

Social Fixer is still around. I use that. Not sure about Fluff Busting Purity but seems always a cat and mouse game between Facebook changing stuff and Social Fixer adjusting to make Facebook less cluttered and intrusive.

Social Fixer used to have a stealth mode where you could use FB and not mistakenly comment or do a reaction on someone's profile. Wish that mode was still around.

I just snoozed for 30 days a brother of mine who posts constantly. I tolerated all the food pictures but now his big thing is all the meme jokes.