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Q. I can’t stand Facebook anymore! I have a friend who floods my Facebook feed with annoying updates. She’s constantly complaining about everything or posting pictures of her pets. I stopped going on Facebook because I didn’t want to read any more of her status updates but then I missed checking in with my other Facebook friends.
I can’t unfriend her because I’m sure she would find out and never forgive me. Is there any way I can get my Facebook back without having my feed filled with her constant updates?
A. I completely understand. Everyone has that annoying Facebook friend whose feeds you would rather not see. People have very different ideas about what information is share-worthy on Facebook.
Ideally, your Facebook feed should be filled with posts from the people you care most about and who publish posts that are interesting and relevant to you. If you’re not liking Facebook, then it’s time to organize your feed.
There are several ways you can fix your flooded Facebook feed so you can enjoy the updates you want to see. By taking just a few minutes to organize your Facebook feed you can have a much more enjoyable Facebook experience.
Unfriending
You’re right about “unfriending” not being a perfect solution. While it might seem like the obvious cure, unfriending can be awkward if your friend discovers your deed. Feigning ignorance may not work if you’re blushing from the embarrassment of being caught.
“What? Unfriend you? I don’t think so. I’m not sure I even know how to do that,” you claim when you’re caught in the act.
You’ll only end up having to be friends with her again, which won’t solve the problem at all and will only cause hard feelings.
Advantage:
The person you unfriend will no longer be your Facebook friend and you won’t be in contact on Facebook. Your Facebook relationship is over.
Disadvantages:
Your relationship can become awkward if your friend finds out about your unfriending.
You may end up having to connect again on Facebook to save face if your friend discovers your unfriending maneuver.
Block
You can block your friend so that nothing she posts appears in your feed. This solution is handy for the highly annoying friends whose updates make you cringe.
To block your annoying Facebook friend, hover your cursor over her post until you see an arrow in the upper right corner of the post. Click on that arrow to reveal a drop-down menu:
To block posts from that person, click on “I don’t want to see this.” You may be given other options such as blocking ads. Facebook will also ask you why you want to block that post:
Advantages:
If you block a friend, you never have to see that person’s posts in your feeds again.
They don’t know you blocked them.
Disadvantage:
You might miss an important post from that a person you’ve blocked.
Acquaintance List
A quick way of organizing your Facebook feed is by using the Acquaintance List feature. Facebook provides you with a ready-made Acquaintance List you can populate with friends you don’t want to hear from often. To make help you organize your friends easily, Facebook can suggest people to include in your Acquaintance List.
Head to Facebook Organize to see suggestions of people Facebook thinks belong on your Acquaintance List. These are people you haven’t interacted with in a long time.
[note] You can make lists manually, but the Facebook Organize tool will save you a lot of time, especially if you have quite a few Facebook friends.[/note]
Uncheck any people you want to keep as full-fledged friends and then click on Add to Acquaintances.
Advantages:
Friends don’t know that they have been added to your Acquaintance List.
You may be reminded of friends you want to reconnect with on Facebook.
Disadvantage:
You should monitor your list to make sure you still want that friend as an Acquaintance.
Managing Your Acquaintance List
You can add a friend to your Acquaintance List who wasn’t suggested by the Facebook Organize tool. To edit your Acquaintance List, go the left column of your Home page.
Hover your cursor on Friends then click on More to reveal your friends lists. (If you don’t see a Friends tab, click on More at the bottom of the column.)
Click on Acquaintances to reveal a page of posts from people on your Acquaintance List.
Near the top of the right column you will see a box that says “+Add friends to this list”. Type in your friend’s name and hit Enter.
You can see a full list of your Acquaintances from this page. In the upper left corner of the page, click on Manage List to reveal a drop down list.
Click Edit List to see a list of friends in your Acquaintance List.
For more information on organizing you friends on Facebook, see the Facebook Help page: Friends List.
Posting to Friends
One of the advantages of using the Acquaintance List is that you can restrict your posts to friends who are not on your Acquaintance List. If you want only your closer friends to see a post, click the box that says “Friends” or “Public”, which ever is your default category, to reveal the drop-down menu.
Choose “Friends except Acquaintances” to prevent your post from showing on the feeds of your Acquaintance List friends.
[warning]Don’t count on this method blocking your Acquaintances from seeing your posts. No method guarantees privacy on Facebook. [/warning]
Sharing
After you create an Acquaintance List, you can share that with all of your friends on Facebook, or share it with all of your friends except your Acquaintances.
My advice? Don’t brag about this feat.
No one wants to entertain the thought that their posts aren’t important to you and that they were demoted from being your friend to being your Acquaintance. If you want to tell people about how easy it is to make Acquaintance Lists then share this article with them instead.
Also see, The Wonder of Tech, Scrub Your Facebook Clean.
Your Thoughts
Is your Facebook feed so cluttered that you miss important posts? Have you ever been frustrated by an annoying friend on Facebook? Have you ever been caught unfriending someone? Have you ever blocked anyone? Have you filled your Acquaintance List? Let us know in the Comments section below!
wow…. 🙂 this is really nice & so simple way to Fix Flooded Facebook Feed wow… Anyone can do fix this very easily… 🙂 Thank you Carolyn.
Hi Vivek, I’m so glad you found this to be handy. I hope you enjoy Facebook even more now!
Hi Carolyn
I’ve become disillusioned with Facebook but this will really help.
There is so much stuff in my news feed that I’m really not that interested in. People who I went to school with many years ago and haven’t seen for umpteen years.
It’s nice to see the odd post but a few of them are pretty heavy Facebook users!
I didn’t really want to unfriend them because I still want to keep in touch. Now I know how I can.
I remember seeing this come up every so often but wasn’t really sure what it would mean so thank you for clarifying it.
I have unfriended people in the past but I’ve never been caught yet!
Hi Tim, Good point. Whether you like Facebook depends on the quality of your Facebook feeds. If you’re not interested in what is being posted, then you’re not going to be interested in Facebook. By filtering your feeds, you will have a much better Facebook experience.
I’m glad you’ve never been caught unfriending anyone, Tim! I won’t tell anyone, promise. :-$
I agree, I have also become disillusioned with “sensory overload” on FB, but maybe this may actually help!
Hi Daas, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, filtering your Facebook feed should certainly help with sensory overload. This is an easy way to do that by taking a few minutes to create an Acquaintance List.
Hi
I’ve close to 300 FB friends & because of this my feed always looks flooded, i did many things to survive like Unsubscribing my friends feed but this tweak seems the right solution for my problem.
Hi Tauseef, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, with 300 friends you would have a crowded feed. This tool can help you organize your friends so you see the most important posts and organize your friends into lists easily.
Hi Carolyn !
Although Facebook has added some annoying ads to our FB news-feed , they have also added some useful options/modules to hide annoying stuff/updates from the news-feed . haha .There are many FB users who may have not seen these options before and you’ve helped them by sharing this article .Thanks for sharing it .
-Pramod
Excellent point, Pramod. Often Facebook updates aren’t necessarily improvements to the site but in this case, the new tool is very handy. The longer people are on Facebook the more friends they tend to have but not all of those friends share posts that everyone wants to read.
The reader who asked this question was very frustrated with Facebook but now perhaps she is happier with it and will be able to enjoy the site again.
Nice solution to a very common problem Carolyn. Personally, I don’t use Facebook anymore but it sure is one popular social media platform.
Hi Frank, You’re right, Facebook is very popular but people will stop using it if they aren’t enjoying the content in their streams. And you’re also right, this is a very simple solution to a very common problem.
very nice post.
That’s gonna help me a lot to manage my Facebook,
I am always disturbed by annoying feed on my wall.
From not only my friends(that people who check in everywhere and every time) but also advertising.
Thanks for your information. really easy to follow up these steps.
Stephan Wu
Hi Stephan, I’m glad you found this to be helpful. Yes, filtering your feed can make Facebook much more enjoyable. You can use Ad Block Plus to filter ads from your feed. See, 15 Fantastic Chrome Extensions to Make Your Life Easier Once you spruce up your feed you will enjoy Facebook much more!
Hi Carolyn,
Nice write up. For me, I uses hide feed and updates from those who are not … really related to me if you get what I mean.
I like the listing part but I yet to try. I can image that to be very useful and will try that out during the weekend.
Thanks for sharing this lovely guide and have a great day ahead.
Hi Reginald, You’re making great use of hiding feeds and updates but you may like using the Acquaintance List better as it can be quicker and you may be able to see important posts you were missing out on before.
It couldn’t hurt to try Acquaintance Lists. You could always go back to blocking feeds if you find that Acquaintance List doesn’t work as well for you.
Before visiting your website i never heard about Acquaintance List of facebook. its really interesting and helpful feature to know about.
thanks for sharing
Hi Mr. Kashyap, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m so glad you found this helpful and found this website. I hope you come back and visit soon!
Hey ‘delphia, how’s it going?
Good post, I have a few I follow and I need to tone them down a bit. How long before there is a backlash and it becomes ‘nocial’ instead of social?
Hope all is well and you have a fantastic day.
Hey Bill, Always a true pleasure to see you here at The Wonder of Tech! I am 100% certain you will never, ever be demoted to anyone’s Acquaintance List. 🙂
Nice to see that Facebook cottoned on the the Google+ concept of – not everyone is my friend or has the same meaning in my life. Of course I am not a big fan of FB, but it is nice to know this can be done. Alas it is too late for me, most of my friends have moved out of it, but I did use that method of turning people off. Some people are very verbose on FB for sure. I wish I had the acquaintance list years ago!! thanks for sharing this info
Hi Ashley, Yes, this would have been a handy feature from the beginning of Facebook but I like how Facebook keeps improving with new tools. The better we can make our Facebook feeds, the more we’ll enjoy Facebook!
I already have organized lists for my friends (friends, bloggers, school friends etc). But, I don’t use it much (I hate the cluttered timeline, and that’s the reason why I created lists).
I do have a question though: Is there anyway for me to hide all the posts of people from specific lists? (so it will force me to go to those pages to interact with them, and my timeline would be free :D) I don’t want to manually hide the posts for each person.
Anyways, thank you for the post, Carolyn 🙂
Appreciate the tips!
Hi Jeevan, Great question. Unfortunately, I don’t see a way to block an entire list of people. Here is the Facebook help page explaining how you can block people’s posts from appearing in your feed: https://www.facebook.com/help/www/268028706671439?rdrhc
While you can block Groups, there does not seem to be a way to block Lists on Facebook.
I hope Facebook rolls out that feature in the future. Yesterday, I did try hiding posts, but discovered that the option is no longer available (The only option I have is “I don’t want to see this” and when I click that I am presented with options such as don’t follow this person). I don’t want to completely remove their updates from FB 😀
Anyways, Thanks for the link, Carolyn 🙂
Exactly, Jeevan, which is why adding these friends to your Acquaintance List is a handy solution. 🙂
Wow, great tips Carolyn. Want to know what I do?
I wrote some time back about a browser extension that you can install so that you don’t ever have to look at certain things on your Facebook account. For instance, I block all ads so I never see them at all. I can also block certain words so that if my annoying friends are always posting about a particular topic then I just include those words and I’ll never see any post pertaining to that. That’s how I manage my Facebook newsfeed and it works beautifully.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, Very cool. What is the name of that plugin? That may work really well for some readers. For me, I prefer to filter people from my feed instead of keywords, but I can see how that would be helpful for you, Adrienne.
Hey Carolyn,
It’ called F.B. Purity and like I mentioned, I wrote a post about it last year so just look in my archives in the Facebook category and you’ll see the post, “How To Rid Spam From Your Facebook News Feed”. I LOVE that extension.
~Adrienne
Thanks for coming back and letting us know about that, Adrienne. Here’s the link to your article for readers who want to read all about FB Purity and watch your helpful video!
How To Rid Spam From Your Facebook News Feed
Hi Carolyn,
Honestly, I also have a feeling like that on facebook. But, I never removes friendships on Facebook because That too extreme. I’ve blocked someone because of words on Facebook a lot to make trouble for me. That problem may be so much easier if I read your article in the past 🙂
This is nice article. I love it :-bd
Hi Nanda, Yes, it is a bit dangerous to unfriend someone just because their posts annoy you. If you’re discovered, the friendship can be deeply affected. Perhaps you are great friends outside of Facebook and you just don’t like what he publishes on Facebook. Using Acquaintance List or blocking can help to make your feed more fun without hurting anyone’s feelings.
I’m so glad you loved this article, Nanda. I hope that you enjoy Facebook more now too! 🙂
Yes, I agree with you 🙂
That is why the information in this article useful once. With this feature we do not hurt the feelings of anyone on Facebook. Keep up the good work! :-bd
Thanks,
Hi Nanda, Yes, the idea of Facebook is to improve your relationships with friends, not to make them worse! Preserving friendships while filtering your feed is really ideal.
Hi Carolyn,
Its been nice to see Facebook is getting more into privacy thing now to make it a better place for its audiences. All these new features will bring relief to some point for the users. Useless feeds/posts from a friend sometimes creates irritation and relationships suffer when someone takes some steps.
Good point, Jon. By taking a few minutes to filter our Facebook feeds, we can have a lot more fun on Facebook. Unfriending people can cause hurt feelings, so this way people can fill their Acquaintance Lists easily without offending anyone.
Very helpful Carolyn – I just cleaned up my newsfeed by blocking MANY sites/blogs. It is readable and actually enjoyable again. Thanks!
You’re very welcome, Kyle! Your actions should go a long way in helping you enjoy Facebook again!
Oh how I wish that I had found your blog last month. I have an old, friends and family account that got cluttered with people I didn’t know so well. I had a health crisis and didn’t share on there because many of these people were strangers.
My sister and close friends encouraged me to get back on, so I cleaned out 150 “friends” who were not really in my circle of close friends.
Thanks for the tip. It is definitely enough to make you want to just not log on. Knowing about the acquaintance list will def help me to post only to those that I want to communicate with.
Awesome article!
Karen Hoyt
Hi Karen, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Thanks so much, I’m glad that you found this article helpful. You’re right, if your Facebook is filled with strangers then you may not want to share personal information with them, such as a health crisis. But you want the support of your friends and Facebook may be the most efficient way to notify your close friends that you need help. Using your Acquaintance List you can separate out those to whom you are close and those who are strangers and post only to these close friends when you need to.
Karen, I hope that you are feeling better and that Facebook becomes a more pleasant place for you to visit. 🙂
Unfriending is too extreme for me. Instead just block people. But, be careful. I had an argument with my girlfriend and I ended up blocking her so she couldn’t write to me. When you block your the one you are related to, she is removed as your girlfriend. Later, it was quite emberassing to get the popup “In a relationship” once again like we had had a break up, which we didn’t. So, lesson learned. Don’t block you girlfriend 🙂
Hi Emil, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Wow, that’s an important lesson you learned about blocking someone on Facebook. In general, people don’t know that you blocked them but in your case, blocking your girlfriend had an impact on your relationship. I didn’t know about the effect that blocking had on your relationship status.
Thanks so much for sharing that information with us, Emil, and best of luck with your girlfriend!
Hi Carolyn,
Ha ha… I can relate a bit to the question as I have a friend who post up stuff about pets all the time. But as I like pets, I didn’t find them as annoying though. But it’s true that someone can find ’em annoying.
Gladly, I don’t keep up with everyone on Facebook but offline and online friends I do really like to hang out with 🙂 Even I wasn’t online, I can catch up with updates I’ve missed. Can’t imagine how some of my friends manage it all by having more than 800 friends.
Oh yes! I do share blog posts on Facebook, but most of my friends are not bloggers though. Some of my friends ask about what is it all about 😀 lol… Therefore I tend not to “overshare” as I call (more than 5 posts a day) and keep a gap between ’em unless everyone can relate very well 🙂 I know, I can’t resist flooding as well. Then how come I expect others to?
As like I don’t like to sign up for a site that I can’t delete, I don’t like to friend with someone to unfriend either 🙂 But did few times. Lately blocking has been immensely helpful to get rid of featured posts and game updates.
I believe… NO! I know that some friends have no idea about what features they can make use of, on Facebook. I think that’s the worst scenario and where things can be messy after all 🙂
I hope this will be helpful for my friends on Facebook Carolyn 🙂 I MUST share this on Facebook but after a certain time period.
You have a fabulous day there dear! 🙂
Cheers…
Hi Mayura, Yes, I made a Blogging Buddies list on Facebook so I can share blogging how to articles with them and not bother my Facebook friends who aren’t bloggers. You’re right, some people love posts about pets, some like posts about children, others like posts about travel. Some people just love all kinds of posts. By managing your Facebook feed you can make your feed work best for you.
You’re right, unfriending people can cause more problems than it solves. Best to have alternative methods for taking control of your feed.
Thanks so much for enriching us with your comment, Mayura, and for sharing this with others too! :-bd
One shortcut is when you see an annoying status update or feed from a friend that you do not like, you can just hover on his or her name, then uncheck Show in News Feed. Aaaand you’re done!
Hi Manny, Great tip! Thanks for sharing that info with us on another way to block friends from your Facebook feed.
Hi Carolyn,
My facebook feed is kind of cluttered, indeed. Also, there some friends that annoy me. Blocking is an interesting option. And a simpler one.
Acquaintance list is more complicate but it may be a better alternative.
I will try both. Thank you.
Have a wonderful day
Hi Silviu, You could try blocking and the Acquaintance List to see which one works for you best. Either one is fairly easy to use, the question is which one gives you the results you want. By putting in just a few minutes of time, you can greatly improve your Facebook feed.
Hi Carolyn,
I just find the FB feed too fast and furious – I only go on once or twice a day and it’s a complete lottery which posts I see and which I don’t. Thanks very much for these tips, which might help to make it more manageable.
Hi Sue, Yes, as you get more and more friends, you feed can become overwhelming. By using the Acquaintance List feature you can take control of your feed so you don’t miss out on important posts from those closest to you!
I don’t understand why people like to disturb the peace others have in their lives. But let me tell you, this nuisance is growing day by day. I will try to follow the steps you mentioned, but if things don’t work I wouldn’t be left with a choice but to block the person.
Hi Paul, Yes, sometimes it is necessary to block or unfriend a person. But if you can take the less drastic step of adding someone to your Acquaintance List, that may work better for you. You can try these and see which is the best fit for you.
Hi Carolyn, I agree we all have that one Facebook friend, who keeps on trying too hard. Ike everyone else, I too was scared to visit Facebook because of her. However, I think I will be back on Facebook. Thanks for the help.
Hello Jack, I’m so glad this was helpful to you. I have heard from many other readers that they have been staying off of Facebook because of an annoying friend. These solutions can make Facebook usable again for many people!