Here’s How To Make Your Facebook News Feed Less Miserable
A friendly PSA: you can block your slightly racist uncle without unfriending him.
It’s natural to want relief from the constant stream of online news, engagement announcements, baby updates, and the five-year-old memes your dad keeps posting. You may not be ready to unfriend your cousin who keeps sharing fake news (no, Vin Diesel is *not* relocating to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), or your slightly racist uncle But you can, at least, politely and — most importantly, discreetly — remove them (and/or the offending news site) from your news feed.
To be clear: I am not suggesting that you should block everyone who disagrees with you from your news feed. That would only intensify the filter bubble/echo chamber Facebook’s algorithms have already created on your behalf. But, every once in a while, it's nice to take a break. Here are a handful of simple ways to make your feed more manageable.
Loryn Brantz / BuzzFeed
If you don’t want to see posts from certain individuals.
You don’t have to deal with the dramz of unfriending them! Click that downward arrow, select Unfollow [Person’s Name], and — BOOM! — they outta there. Forever. Until you follow them back. That’s it!
Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News
If you want to see more stuff from people and pages you actually like, generally.
The See First feature is the best way to tell Facebook what you actually want look at in your news feed. It’s also a great way to point the site’s algorithms to high-quality content from friends, public pages, and news organizations you trust.
From a desktop computer, you can mark someone as See First on their page, on the bottom right corner of their cover photo. On mobile, from their profile tap Following and then See First. You can mark a page (like BuzzFeed News’s or Beyoncé’s) by clicking on Following and then See First. You’re limited to 30 people or pages. And, no, they won’t be notified that you’re ~really into~ their posts.
Posts from those people or pages will appear first, before anything else in your News Feed. On desktop, manage these by going to your news feed and on the left column, hover your mouse over the ellipses next to News Feed and click Edit preferences, then Prioritize who to see first.
Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News
On any post, tap the downward arrow, select Hide post. You should then see a small box after the hidden post is collapsed. Next, click See less from [Person’s Name].