While this is a very basic tip for anyone who considers themselves at advanced intermediate or higher skill level when using Facebook (FB), I’ve heard from several novice and even more experienced users that they’ve shied away from using FB. This is because they have a hard time following all of the chatter that appears in their news feed as friends update their status, take quizzes, post memes, etc. This is a very common complaint amongst those who have more than, say, 100 FB friends.
As I write this, I have over 470 friends on FB and many of them are fiction writers and marketing professionals that I connect with purely for networking purposes. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I really don’t need to know 25 random things about you. Sorry.
In any case, there’s a very simple fix that will allow you to hide updates from these FB “acquaintances” and clean up your news feed. Note that if you implement this change, FB will NOT send a notice to the person you hide stating “John Smith does not give a rat’s ass which Star Wars character you are” (though in some cases, I’d like that option).
Here’s the fix.
1. Go to your Newsfeed page by clicking on the “Home” link at the top of the page. It’s also the default page when you first log in to Fb.
2. Locate a post from someone you want to hide.
3. Move your cursor to the far right of the post until you see a grey box containing the word “Hide”. Click on the word “Hide”
4. Now you will see a drop-down menu containing one item that reads “Hide John Smith” (see image below). Select that option.
Click to see larger image.
Once you do that, all current and future posts made by that friend will no longer appear in your newsfeed.
That said, you may want to see those hidden posts for some reason. You have several options. Obviously, you may visit a specific profile to see all updates from that person. Alternately, you can scroll to the bottom of your newsfeed page and click on a link reading “Show ## Hidden Posts” (see image below).
This will reveal all of the currently hidden posts from all hidden profiles. You can also select the link right next to it reading “Edit Options”. This will open an option box allowing you to restore certain users to your newsfeed.
There. That should help you reduce the clutter on your newsfeed page.
