Are you feeling overwhelmed with all the status updates you receive on Facebook? If so, you’re not alone. Many of the members of my Facebook for Beginners class at Colorado Free University complain about this problem, as do lots of other folks I know.

Information concept: hand holding smartphone with word Information Overload on display. Mobile smart phone on Blue background, 3d render

 

There are many possible for getting too many updates: maybe you have a lot of Facebook friends, maybe a few of your Facebook friends post continuously, and/or maybe you receive a lot of posts from business pages you have liked or from members of the Facebook groups you have joined.

No matter the reason, there are ways to reduce the tsunami of updates.

 

Ways to Avoid Facebook Overwhelm

  1. Pay attention for a day or two to determine which of your Facebook friends tend to post numerous times each day. Consider unfollowing one or more of them. This is not the same as unfriending them – it just means you won’t see their updates in your newsfeed. They are not notified that you have stopped following them, and you can always take a look at their page every so often if you want to be aware of what they’ve been up to.
    1. To unfollow someone, go to their Facebook page (aka their Facebook Timeline). Hover your cursor over the little drop down arrow to the right of the button called Following (at the bottom of their cover photo and to the right of the button called Friends). Click on Unfollow _____ (name of the person).
  2. Go to your Friends tab, found under your cover photo on your personal Facebook page (aka your Facebook Timeline). Scroll through all your friends and make your closer friends in real life “close friends” on Facebook. Then you can just go to this list of close friends (found on your home page in the left hand column) and review those posts on a daily basis, essentially ignoring your overall news feed.
  3. A variation of the above is to put each of your Facebook friends into a customized list (while it is time consuming to do this, it will save you time later).
    1. You do this by going to the FRIENDS section in the left hand column, clicking on “More” and then clicking on Create List. You can make lists of only your friends from work, church, sporting activities, high school, or whatever other category you can think of. Then, you can scroll through just the list of friends you want to catch up on at any time.
  4. “Unlike” business pages that you aren’t really interested in any more. And if you have clicked on “get notifications” for any of those pages, unclick that for the pages you are kind of interested in, but you don’t need to be notified of every post.
  5. Go to each of your Facebook groups and leave the ones that don’t resonate with you any longer. For those groups you stay in, click on Notifications. Then, instead of the default, which is “All Posts,” select either “Friends’ posts” or “Off.”

 

How About You?

What do you recommend for ways that you have reduced the amount of updates you are getting on Facebook?

 

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel, Founder of Boomers' Social Media Tutor

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those age 50 and up, to become more comfortable using social media, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.

She works with business owners, business development professionals, leaders of nonprofit organizations, job seekers, retired people, consultants, and many others. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.