Let’s face the facts: most of us living in the modernized world (and a lot of other folks living in the somewhat modernized world) are Facebook users, and most of us who are log in several times a day (if we log off at all) to get news from friends and family, play Zynga games or just stay up to date with the latest shenanigans of Keyboard Cat or Aunt Acid. The problem, for me at least, is that my experience is often marred by unwanted (and irrelevant) publicity, notifications from friends posting things I don’t want to see, and finding out that someone has tagged me in a hugely inappropriate picture taken last Friday night while I was enjoying myself (a bit too much) at the local bar.
So here are a few tips on how to make your Facebook experience more enjoyable – and more tuned to your unique likes and dislikes about the social media giant. For all its flaws, Facebook has a surprisingly high customization capability, much of which is little known to users who just put up with the annoyances on a daily basis.
Tell Facebook which advertisements don’t appeal to you
Facebook is notorious for filling your feed with adverts generated based on your likes, posts, and general identity. It shamelessly shows you advertisements for weight loss, viagra, magical skin restoration cures and other products that you have no interest in. You should know that whenever you see an ad that doesn’t fit your interests or lifestyle, you can simply click on the three little dots on the top right corner of the add and select ‘Hide’ from the dropdown list. This will help ensure that Facebook does not populate those kind of ads on your newsfeed, or much fewer of them in the future.
Choose what pictures and activities you’re tagged in
You don’t need to allow your friends, relatives or co-workers to tag you in any posts without your approval. Avoid embarrassing tags by going to the timeline and tagging page and selecting ‘Review Tags’, which will allow you to see who has tagged you in what circumstance before the post goes live. From there, you can choose to approve or deny the tag, giving you control over what post you are tagged in.
Hide certain people’s posts
We all have that friend who always posts about stuff we don’t want to see or read about – and there’s an easy way to hide those posts without being unfriendly. All you need to do is unfollow whichever friends you’d like to hear less about, and Facebook won’t send you notifications or show their posts in your timeline – without you having to unfriend them.