Briathrail // Albert 2MNG

This was imported from my old Tumblr blog posts.

Two years ago, I noticed something that bothered me: I was getting more agitated while browsing my Facebook feed. And I wasn’t OK with that.

There’s people sharing stuff about their daily stuff, which I’m pretty OK with. I like pet pictures. I like to know what’s up with my friends, and see what’s up and up so I can at least have conversation starters when we meet. 

What I was bothered by are the ones sharing news articles from dubious sources. The ones sharing rumors about gaming “leaks”. The ones exhibiting asshole-ish tendencies. The ones promoting hateful shit.

Some are friends, and some are from FB groups I subscribed to.

So I thought long and hard about how to nip it, because I come to Facebook to just see stuff and look at what’s up and there, not to get riled up over some nonsense. I want to come and go with a certain peace, which is hard to do in the modern “social-media” driven era.

So last year, I finally came up with a solution that helped me “sanitize” my FB feed. And I had to make hard choices, but it was worth it in the long run. I perfected my method over the course of a year.

And it was a solution that was just staring me in the face:

Hide those shit. It’s that simple.

But I had to be very meticulous. Especially with who or what I’m blocking and hiding.

1. With personal friends, I tend to be more meticulous. When someone either posts something that is either 1) a link from a fake news site, 2) promoting political lobbies or groups, 3) promoting FB groups that I know are just from extreme right/left-wing people, 4) console gaming rumors – I snooze them for 30 days for the first offense, and block anything I can from their post (especially FB groups). The second time I spot them with something I have strong dislike for, I just outright hide their posts permanently from my news feed.
   
2. With my subscribed FB groups, I get a bit more strict. Either I block it or I don’t. I’m subscribed to at least three FB groups, and as I’m not an admin, there will be members there that are just plain retarded (and that’s putting it very mildly). No use engaging with those or even seeing what they deem relevant to post to a group.
   
   For example, two of my groups are for Nintendo-related consoles. So last year I started hiding people that share either 1) whining, 2) exclusive Playstation or XBox news, 3) “humble brag” posts of their home console setups, 4) console gaming rumors, 5) YT videos of people that use screaming as a selling point, 6) YT videos of people with obviously wrong opinions, 7) cringe-worthy questions that have obvious answers in Google, e.g. “when’s Netflix coming to Switch”, and 8) useless polls. 
   
3. Of course FB will sometimes promote products or show me stuff on my feed that are just “wow, is this what my browsing habits show me” kind of feeling. So I also have a one-strike policy on these. I just hide the ads I find that are just shit, or ads I have zero interest in. Like SG has a lot of enterprises that promote “warehouse closing sales” in FB that unfortunately gets in my feed – I hide those. Some I even report.

It’s not yet perfect, but as far as now, one year after I decided to have a more active approach to sanitizing my FB feed, I can say I like my feed much, much better now. When I browse FB, I don’t get the “oh this makes me irritated” feeling anymore. 

I think the lesson for me (and probably others) is that we can control what we see in Facebook – it’s just that only a few bother to do so. And for me, telling FB what I like to see, that is how I use it.