Your Facebook news feed may sometimes seem like a jumbled mess of nearly anything and everything. Or occasionally it may seem like you only see a handful of people over and over. You know you have more than six friends, but somehow the rest never show up.
What can you do about it?
Well, in a word, plenty. The first place to look is your settings. At the top of your news feed you will see a choice of Top News or Most Recent. Most Recent will give you a bigger list of status posts, Top News will be more heavily weighed against Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm.
Next look at the very bottom of the news feed. There you will find a link to Edit Options which will give you another two choices:
- Show posts from all of your friends and pages
- Show posts from friends and pages you interact with
By default, the 2nd choice is in place. To get a wider sampling from your friends change it to the first one.
Below that is friends and apps you have blocked. If you have never blocked anyone you are in for a treat. Simply go to an offending post and move your mouse over the top right corner of the post and an X will appear. If you click it you will have some additional options.
- Hide this post
- Hide all posts from <this friend>
- Hide all notifications from <this app – such as a game>
- Report spam
It is your choice. Some people get tired of endless notifications from Vampire Wars or Farmville, other people are sick of one person whining over and over. Still others hide one or another post because the topic irritates them. It is your choice.
By the same token, now that you are down there and you can see what friends you have blocked and what apps you have blocked you may wish to change your mind. Maybe the whiny friend isn’t so bad now that he’s done with therapy. Maybe you are now playing Vampire Wars and are yearning for some notifications. It is your choice all the way.
Once you have edited your top settings and your bottom settings and have decided what friends and apps to block, your Facebook news feed should be much more manageable. Enjoy!