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Email a FriendPosted by catriona on Monday, Mar 8, 2010 11:25 AM (EDT):
Thank you. I, too find “News Feed” annoying (seemed to leave out people I’d like to hear from) but didn’t know there was any other option.
Streamline Your Facebook Experience
How A Mom Can Use Facebook Without Going Nuts
Posted by Melissa Wiley in Reviews on Monday, March 08, 2010 10:00 AM
Fire up your Facebook pages! I’ve been invited to guest-blog here at Faith and Family Live this week to talk about social media. Thanks, Danielle, for having me!
Recently, the sudden arrival of Google Buzz threw many Gmail users for a loop — especially mothers like me who were surprised to discover our children’s names and comments showing up on our Buzz pages, right there for all the world to see. Buzz’s initial privacy flaws have been addressed now, following a storm of negative feedback, but it was a good lesson for all of us in just how easy it is to unwittingly reveal personal information on social networks.
This week I’d like to take a look at some of my favorite social networks and talk about their pros and cons, with a special focus on how to protect our privacy.
First up, Facebook. I am an unabashed Facebook lover, though I have my grumbles about it as well. And while I understand why it doesn’t appeal to everyone, I am grateful for the renewed and reinforced connections Facebook has provided me. I’m now in daily touch with uncles, aunts, cousins, in-laws, nieces and nephews, and old friends scattered around the globe. My father is there (with my mom peeking over his shoulder), and one of my two sisters. (I really wish my other sis would get on board!) My hubby is there too, and many of our college friends, which makes for some lively comment threads. Far from being a superficial time-waster, Facebook has been a source of meaningful connection for my family.
But it still drives me crazy sometimes. Facebook takes some tweaking or it can quickly become a blur of cartoon hugs and Farmville notices (even if you never play Farmville).
Tomorrow we’ll look at Facebook’s privacy settings. Today, here are a few tips for navigating Facebook and narrowing down the stream of content so that you only see what you want to see.
What’s a news feed, anyway?
When you log into Facebook, you land on your Home screen: two narrow sidebars and a wide center column. The center column is labeled NEWS FEED. The News Feed is—well, to be honest, what it is is ANNOYING. I never use it. It pulls in updates from a limited number of your Facebook friends, selected randomly, I think. Bah. What if my daddy never makes the random cut?
So what I do is switch to the Status Updates display.
1) Click on “Friends” in the left sidebar. (A few lines below your profile picture.)
2) Click on “Status Updates.”
Ah, that’s better. Now I can see what you’re all up to.
You can also create groupings of your Facebook friends and read the latest status updates for specific groups—say, family, high school friends, college friends, local friends.
1) To create a group, click “Friends” again.
2) Center column, top right: click “Create List.”
After you’ve selected friends for the list, the name of the group will show up under that Friends tab from now on. (You might need to click the More button.) Maybe you like to check your family’s status updates every day, but you’re trying to manage your online time wisely and you’ve decided to save catching up with old friends for Saturdays. (Just an example.)
What I like even better than the stream of status updates is clicking through to individual friends’ profile pages. Of course I can only visit a couple of friends this way each day—but it’s fun to catch up on a day or two in their lives all at once.
Now let’s go back to the Status Updates display. Occasionally you might find yourself with a Facebook friend whose updates you’d rather not read. That sounds awful, doesn’t it? I don’t mean it in a mean way. Suppose your friend the widget maker is at a widgetmaking conference and is live-tweeting a panel discussion on the Postmodern Hermeneutics of Qualitative Widgetification. Her Twitter stream is set to feed into her Facebook updates, and, well, you love her but you just don’t find widgets all that gripping. What you can do is temporarily hide her updates.
Hover your cursor over the right side of the center column, just to the right of a status update. A little hide button will pop up. If you click it, her updates will disappear from your stream.
How to un-hide her after the Conference of Widgetosity is (mercifully) over:
1) Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and look for Edit Options in the center column.
2) Click that and a box will pop up, with the caption: “The following streams are hidden from your News Feed. Click ‘Add to News Feed’ to see their posts again.”
Easy-peasy!
You can also hide Applications. This is very, very, very important for maintaining Facebook sanity. If you are being driven crazy by notices about Mafia Wars, Farmville, or any other game or application, simply hover your mouse to the right of the notice until your best friend, the Hide button, appears.
There. Doesn’t it feel good to declutter? Now I can relax and enjoy the news and photos from the people I love. Looks like my dad snapped some amazing shots of a hawk in his backyard today.
Next up: protecting your privacy on Facebook.
Comments
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I’m excited about your blogging this week! Fun!
I did find out that you can get everyone to appear on your news feed by scrolling to the bottom and clicking on “Edit Options”, then for “Number of Friends” you type “9999” or some other huge number! You can also choose what friends appear on it, in that box. I like to use News Feed because it also adds photos and videos, unlike Status Updates.
Posted by Sandy on Monday, Mar 8, 2010 4:32 PM (EDT):
Here is a question for you. Is there a way to not show your name when you log into facebook. I am not fond of the chat feature. I sometimes feel almost stalked as soon as I sign in someone wants to chat.
God Bless You
Posted by Livy on Monday, Mar 8, 2010 4:55 PM (EDT):
I also gave up facebook for Lent, so I’m going to have to do the following in general terms. 
You can make yourself unavailable on facebook (I have done so) and I forget exactly how, but when you go down to the “chat” area and click to see who is online, there is an option to scroll your mouse over to make yourself “offline” I believe is the phrase. It doesn’t let you see who is online (if you click to see who is online, it makes you available to chat again), but it will keep you “offline” until you change it back (even if you logout and log back in again). Hope this helps!
Posted by Melissa Wiley on Monday, Mar 8, 2010 4:56 PM (EDT):
Sandy—excellent question! Yes, you can go “invisible” on Facebook. Click the Chat tab at the bottom right of the screen. (Well, it’s a tab if you’ve minimized it; a box if not.) There is an Options button at the top of the Chat box. Click that and select “Go offline.” Now you’re invisible.
You can toggle that setting on and off. I keep mine turned off because as much as I’d love to chat with my friends throughout the day, I find that’s where time really slips away. I keep my Gmail chat set on “invisible” as well. That way my hubby can still IM me if he needs to, but I won’t be tempted to gab with friends.
Blair, GREAT tip about the “number of friends” setting on News Feed! Thanks for sharing it!
Posted by Christie on Monday, Mar 8, 2010 5:22 PM (EDT):
Too funny-I gave up facebook for Lent too. I have found it both good-reconecting with old friends, meeting some new people, staying in touch with close friend. I have also found it to be a temptation to gossip and waste time. I will have to find a way to ballance the good and the not so good after Lent.
I love facebook but I have found it much easier by setting up two accounts. One is for family and close friends where I make daily status updates and post lots of pics. The other is for people (acquaintances/ old school friends) that I want to keep in touch with but on a less frequent and limited basis.
Posted by Rose on Tuesday, Mar 9, 2010 12:44 PM (EDT):
While I enjoy playing the FB games I don’t want to necessarily post all those things it wants you to and does post some without asking if you want to post because I know that not everyone wants to see all those. I too have more than one account but learned to late which one I should play games on and I wish I could move a game to another account but don’t know how or if you can do that. I have visited with many new interesting people in other countries, reconnected with family and friends and have only run across one or two individuals who should be permanently removed from FB. Does anyone know how you can block the game postings from friends who do not play the games?
The only thing that I miss when I do status updates only, is pictures that friends and family put out there. If you are on status updates only, you miss the pictures. I’ve installed a script instead that helps with that.
Also, someone mentioned two accounts on Facebook. I did that one too, until I realized that in the Terms you are giving your word that you will only have one personal FB account at a time. Does anyone know if that has changed or not? I know it might sound silly, but if I’m agreeing to something, I don’t want to go against what I said I would do.
Thanks for the tips.
JoAnn
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