NEW YORK — A lady we haven’t oral to in 6 years is profound with her second son. Another college familiarity reads a Bible a lot. A high propagandize classmate likes to diatribe about politics. A college dormmate thinks he works too much.
On Facebook, I’m connected to a lot of people who are not my friends. Over a years, as my Facebook crony list grows, it’s done me increasingly worried that we seem to know so most about people that we don’t indeed know.
So as a new year approached, we motionless to examination my Facebook life. we took a four-week mangle – a “Facebook Fast” – from a world’s biggest online amicable network. The mangle this tumble spanned a presidential debate and election, Superstorm Sandy, fighting in a Middle East and my college’s homecoming weekend – all events we cared about. These were all reasons for me to crave Facebook as a approach to check a zeitgeist.
What did we learn? Sure, there are cheap and irritating aspects to Facebook. It connects us to any other like tabloids bond readers to celebrities, and it compels us to gossip. It mostly creates us voyeurs incidentally enthralled in a insinuate lives of people we hardly know.
But after 8 years on a network, we rest on it for cinema and news of lost friends and relatives. we can’t quit. Like it or not, Facebook is an critical partial of my life.
Facebook Inc. is in a midst of perplexing to make a remoteness policies some-more discerning for users. It has combined a tiny clinch idol during a tip right of a website. When we click on it, Facebook walks we by how to change who sees what we post, who can hit we and how to examination what others are essay about you.
But if you’re perplexing to curate your Facebook life, there are some-more stairs we need to take. Here are some tips for remaking a network so it’s reduction a publication feed of neglected updates and some-more a warmer, personal space that improved reflects your real-life amicable circle.
CUT BACK ON TOTAL TIME SPENT
I used to keep Facebook open on my work computer, checking in intermittently around a day. we relied on a Facebook app on my phone to perform me whenever we was watchful in line or roving in a taxi. we would also record in during home.
It was overkill. we check Facebook reduction mostly now. The goal: Read reduction and write more.
First, we infirm a app on my phone.
I also enabled email notifications for whenever someone sends me a message, tags me in a photo, or posts on my form or in one of my groups. If someone’s perplexing to get in hold with me, we still wish to know and be means to respond. Because we get a notifications, we don’t need to keep Facebook open during work or check on it constantly during home.
Here’s how to get those notifications: Click on a circle idol during a tip right dilemma of Facebook and select “privacy settings” on a menu that pops up. Then click on “notifications” on a left. Then, we can revise what Facebook sends we over email – as good as around texts and phone alerts.
RESTRICT ACCESS
I hatred it when people send me personal messages by broadcasting it on my form page, or timeline, for everybody to see. I’d rather that chairman send me an email or a private Facebook summary that we alone could see. But many people still insist on posting such messages on my timeline anyway.
To residence that, we effectively incited off my timeline. Someone can still post on it, though I’ve practiced a settings so that chairman and we are a usually ones who can see that note. we can still publicly share things that we wish seen broadly, like a post we wrote compelling my sister’s new yoga business. To make these adjustments, select “privacy settings” underneath a circle again. Then click on “timeline and tagging” on a left.
Facebook alerts me when somebody else has trustworthy my name to a post or picture, and we need to approve it before others can see it. The settings for this are found underneath a same “timeline and tagging” page. Turn on reviews for posts you’ve been tagged in.
FRIENDS OR “FRIENDS”?
My news feed – a tide of friends’ links, photos and life comments – was too cluttered with information about people we didn’t know anymore. De-friending people seems bold and assertive to me (although it competence be a good thought down a highway as decades of friends raise up).
Without exceedingly paring down your crony list, here’s how to get Facebook to uncover we usually what we wish to see:
_ Determine who shows adult some-more on your news feed. When you’re on your timeline page, click on “friends” during a top, nearby your form picture, to see a list of all of your friends. Each chairman has a “friends” symbol subsequent to his or her picture. To see some-more of that person’s posts, select “close friends.” To see less, click “acquaintances.” Friends won’t know that you’ve sorted them this way. You can also do this by hovering over a name of a chairman posting on your timeline. A box will cocktail adult with a person’s form design and a same “friends” button.
_ To tweak what kind of updates we get from any friend, click “settings” underneath a same “friends” button. You can select to see usually updates on vital life events and pictures, for example, while ignoring updates about their comments and likes on other people’s posts.
_ If specific posts in your news feed provoke you, we can censor them. Hover over a tip right dilemma of a post, click on a box that pops up, and select “hide…” That will mislay a post from your news feed, nonetheless we will still get destiny updates from that person.
_ You can also cut off all updates from a friend. After stealing a specific post in your timeline by that person, click “change what updates we get from…” Under a drop-down menu that comes up, click “unsubscribe.” You can also omit a person’s Facebook activity by unchecking “show in news feed,” underneath a same menu that lets we arrange friends into “close friends” and “acquaintances.”
Curating your news feed in this demeanour is fatiguing if we have hundreds of connections. But a outcome is reduction publication magazine, some-more personal messages and lovable cinema from people who are indeed your friends.
SMALLER CIRCLES
One of a good advantages of Facebook is that it helps we keep in hold with a handful of people who have a common interest. Hundreds of Facebook friends don’t need to see a insinuate interactions we have with a few closer friends. So we combined private spheres for smaller circles – smaller than a lists Facebook automatically generates formed on your propagandize information, hometown and employer.
I combined such a organisation with 3 friends – one from England, one from France and one from Los Angeles – we had spent several days with in a tiny city in Colombia while on vacation. The 4 of us use that to post stupid photos of ourselves from a outing and write any other personal updates. That spares everybody else from carrying to hear about a subsequent time we’re going to see any other.
To set adult a group, go to your news feed by clicking on “home” adult top. Then click “create group,” that is on a left of a page, in a “groups” section. we typed in a 3 friends to supplement and chose to make a organisation “secret,” that means usually members of a organisation can see that it even exists. we also get notifications from Facebook whenever anyone posts to a group. You can spin those on from a “notifications” page underneath a circle icon.
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You Luv ‘Call Me Maybe’
Remember when we were carrying that emreally bad/em day and bloody Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” 23 times on Spotfiy? Yeah… well, we witnessed that low impulse around your Facebook profile’s ticker, a real-time mini feed located in a tip right palm dilemma of Facebook pages.
If we don’t wish to share your (possibly embarrassing) low-pitched preferences with your Facebook friends, make certain to spin off a “Share to Facebook” symbol (at a tip right of your Spotify desktop app).
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You Can’t Resist Clicking On Sketchy, Sexy Video Links
Some Facebook apps, like Socialcam, are designed to make we click on calm by regulating sleazy, eye-catching headlines. “Socialcam’s ‘trending’ videos review like a garland of crossovers between a ‘American Pie’ authorization and ‘Jackass,’” a href=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/socialcams-so-sleazy-its-insightful/2012/06/05/gJQAor3FGV_story.html” target=”_hplink”The Washington Post wrote/a in June. If you’re a SocialCam user, remember that a spam-like titles of videos we perspective automatically cocktail adult on your profile, so your friends all competence know when you’ve watched “CraZy ThReeSom!” or “Two Wasted Chicks” final week.
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You Can’t Get Enough Sideboob In Your News
Glancing during a luscious essay on how Miley Cyrus a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/22/miley-cyrus-side-boob-actress-sex-scenes-losing-virginity_n_1536026.html” target=”_hplink”flashed some sideboob/a? While this wouldn’t proviso some Facebook users, others would cite not to have anything with a word “sideboob” published on their profiles or in friends’ News Feeds.
Facebook’s amicable reader apps lane a articles we read, and with accede we extend when initial downloading a app, afterwards post a stories automatically to your wall. So be sap of those shameful headlines earnest half-naked pictures.
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How Old You Are
Some people adore removing birthday wishes around Facebook. But putting your your full date of birth on any amicable networking site means strangers are arcane to information that can be used to take your identity. If we wish to keep your birthday adult online, cruise holding a protected track and stop a year.
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You Went Out Boozin’ Every Night Last Week
Friends or apps can now add-on your plcae around Facebook. But maybe we don’t wish everybody to know you’re visiting that area dive bar for a fourth night this week.
“There isn’t a specific environment to retard people from tagging we in a post that includes a location,” a href=”https://www.facebook.com/help/location/privacy” target=”_hplink”Facebook’s site reads/a. This means if we don’t wish your locale known, you’ll have to change your Timeline environment to approve all tags before they’re posted, or manually mislay a tags once they’ve been published.
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You Are Addicted To Artsy Pics Of Beaches And Breakfast Food
Photo-sharing app Instagram is comparatively approach in revelation we where your cinema are posted. But we competence unknowingly be photo-spamming your friend’s Facebook feeds by vouchsafing a app re-post each design we “like” onto Facebook. And things could get a tiny dicey depending on a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/instagram-porn_n_1842761.html?utm_hp_ref=technology” target=”_hplink”what forms of images we view./a
Luckily this underline is easy to change. Just go into a settings options on your Instagram app, click a “Share Settings” add-on and spin off a environment that shares “Liked” photos to your Facebook timeline.
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What Your Kids’ Names Are
Tagging or fixing younger children on Facebook can be a dangerous move. Similar to putting your full birthday on a interent, we could be charity adult too most information and enabling a crack of privacy. “If your child isn’t on Facebook and someone includes his or her name in a caption, ask that chairman to mislay a name,” a href=”http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/june/electronics-computers/social-insecurity/7-things-to-stop-doing-on-facebook/index.htm” target=”_hplink”Consumer Reports advises/a.
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