social networking sites continue to explode in popularity. according to nielsen:
- in december ’09 alone, over 300 million people logged onto facebook.
- on average, people spent 5.5 hours on facebook during december 2009 (a 201% increase from december 2008).
- over 300,000 businesses are now on facebook promoting their goods/services.
depending on your line of work, facebook may be unavoidable. but even if it is unavoidable, there’s good news: it doesn’t have to run your life. i have compiled a list of helpful hints to keep facebook from ruining your life.
how to minimize your time on facebook:
- choose your friends wisely. if you really want to limit your time on facebook, just limit the number of friends that you accept. remember, the less friends you accept, the less number of possible interactions that arise. convince yourself that you do not need to accept every friend request that shows up on your page. just because you went to the same high school with somebody doesn’t mean you need to become their “online friend” today. besides, apparently, the human mind can only handle 150 friends anyway.
- skip the applications/games. if you are on facebook to connect with friends, then get on facebook to connect with friends. you don’t need to spend your time joining the mafia, building a farm, or finding out which disney princess you are. however, if you would like facebook to be your online gaming platform… that is certainly up to you.
- remove all e-mail notifications. by turning off all notifications to your e-mail or mobile device, you remove facebook’s opportunity to interrupt your daily life at any moment. you also remove the urge to respond to every notification as it appears. to change these options, go to account settings and choose the “notifications” tab, there click “off” on all the e-mail notifications you don’t really need.
- hide unnecessary notifications from your newsfeed. if you’re not interested in someone’s or an application’s updates specifically, you can hide them from your newsfeed permanently. just hover over the update’s upper right corner and when you see the button “hide” appear, click to choose “hide this person’s updates” or “hide (whatever app) updates”. i use this on every application that appears in my newsfeed, on people who update way-too-often, and on people who constantly post negative status reports (i don’t need them bringing me down with them.)
- don’t facebook chat. among the most inefficient methods of communication in our world today stand internet chatting, texting, and morse code. and you don’t even have to initiate a facebook chat to get stuck in the middle of one… should a friend notice you are online. to go offline even when using facebook, click “chat,” “options,” and “go offline.”
- sync your social networking sites. if you are also a user of youtube, flickr, twitter, or etc., there are many applications/software that will sync them for you so that you do not need to upload/update things twice.
- only log-in once/day. certainly, this works only as well as your personal discipline allows. if once/day is still chewing up too much of your life, choose any frequency you desire.
- get drastic and limit your minutes. if personal discipline isn’t working for you, there are websites that will limit your time for you: minutesplease.com, for example.
- honorable mention: choose your photos wisely, choose your fan pages wisely, and become a friend of the “ignore” button.
these tips can be used for any user of facebook whether you are on for personal or commercial reasons.
oh, and don’t forget to become a fan of becoming minimalist on facebook.
mah-10 says
What’s a “face book”?
dave peters says
simple. just get rid of it. nobody needs to know me that well except God
and he already does. d
Leah says
Facebook is a big thing for me. A big no-no I mean. I’ve been deactivated and before I was deactivated I hide all of my “friends” notifications on my feed page. Something about seeing everyone’s lives gives me the creeps (especially people I wasn’t really friends with), not to mention totally wastes my time. One of my least favorite phrases is “I saw it on facebook.”
To me, it’s just a lair for gossips.
di says
Indeed.
kuhan says
Hi, thanks i have been an addict until a few of my frenimy was poking fun on me b’cause of it. I was pissed with them then, now am thankful, and ur post ready made a difference now..Hide every status of ppl am not close with
di says
Me, too. The consequence of gossip is unpredictable.
Mason says
If you’ve got friends that send you invites to a million things maybe you dont have the right friends.
Im happy with my 91 and I keep in touch with all of them :)
Julia says
Unfortunately, facebook lite has been discontinued. Another minimalist option is to run the mobile version (m.facebook.com) in your computer browser. Too extreme for some people, just right for others.
heather says
Thanks for including the how-to about hiding applications in the feed! I didn’t realize FB had evolved that much. Last time I tried it, it would have eliminated all postings by what were otherwise good friends.
becoming minimalist says
@gareth – i guess that would minimalize your time on facebook once and for all. i realize that not every one wants to / needs to join facebook.
i have found incredible benefits both personally and professionally speaking. in my life, it has become a valuable resource for staying in touch with people i no longer live near. and still for others, depending on their line of work, facebook may have become unavoidable. for them, we offered the list above. but your suggestion has been duly noted.
di says
There are so few that I would really trust with my information – even though I chose to list very little.
Gareth says
There appears to be a tip missing from this list…
Don’t join!
Seriously. I’m not trying to be cheeky.
I realise that many people will be incredulous at such a suggestion, but it’s true.
di says
I only joined to view my daughter’s photos as she travels.
Chad McCullough says
Another issue with Facebook is their privacy policy. Look at it really close before signing up with them. A few weeks ago, there was a great story about the new Facebook privacy policy on NPR. They’re definitely catering to advertisers. The story talked about how difficult the new policy is to understand for most people so they just pick the default settings. That’s a big mistake.
Just thought I would mention this.