Relax your social media

I was thinking a post to help others do what I’ve done would be nice. I have, what I call – Relaxed my social media. Namely the Facebook….. where I’ve found most of the chaos comes from due to being able to write more commentary and posts.

The first step I took was unfollowing pages I’d liked that were of no interest to me anymore, product pages for things I don’t buy regularly therefore I don’t need to see their posts, stores/shops that I do not frequent or purchase from, celebrities I don’t care to see posts from, fan pages, show/movie pages, and blogger pages who’s views I don’t align with or they don’t post things that interest me. I kept some of the pages that share memes and graphics that I do enjoy seeing/sharing regularly but I made sure to keep only the ones who post mostly positive or comical ones and not negative or controversial posts. I unfollowed all politicians who were either not local to me, or their views didn’t align with mine.

Next step was groups, I either left or unfollowed groups that I saw that I don’t need to be in anymore or I don’t care to see posts from. This will be an ongoing process as I catch them. I looked for party groups first. They’re the easiest to find searching ‘party’ in your groups tab. You know, the makeup online party your friend added you to and you wanted to see if they had something you liked – but then you forgot to leave the party officially. Those reps will go back into those groups and post sales etc in a year or so, which is fine for them and what they do – I never oppose a side hustle – but if the products don’t interest you, go ahead and leave the group so it doesn’t pop back up later when they post again. The next I looked for was boutique or vip groups. If I’d never bought or wanted to buy from them I left. I’m at a point where I’m not clothes shopping so those had to go for a while. I stayed in the ones that are local or that I might buy from in the future…. Travel groups, the ones that you joined because you were going to that location on vacation…. you’re still in there. So I left those unless it’s a normal location we frequent. Buy & sell groups. If there are less than a few thousand in your local buy/sell group, statistically you’re not going to get the visibility you want from your posts in there. I stayed in the ones with a good sized audience and that were local (within 30 minutes) of me. I don’t want to sell to someone outside of my general area typically since I prefer not to ship. Miscellaneous groups: such as news & history groups (I stayed in the local ones and the ones from my hometown). You get the idea by now I’m sure…. leave the ones that are not of daily interest to you. Remember, you know those groups are there if you need to rejoin them later for a specific reason. Same with pages, if you unfollow a store you don’t frequent but next year they open one in your town, then you can re-like the page so you see sales etc. on your feed. This has taken so much of the news feed clutter out of my account.

Next, FB has friends lists. Use that. I have always used ‘restricted’ for some but recently I decided to tweak what I was doing and get a bit more strict with my friend zone.

First, they’re editable on your desktop – take that into account there because you can access and change privacy on mobile but not edit them there. (at least as of today)

Here’s what I did. I put my closest friends and family in the list that says ‘close friends’. The people I picked for this were the ones that I know I can post whatever I want and it’s okay. The ones that want to know details of our lives, see our pictures, and read my posts. Unfortunately, out of 700+ friends, this list includes less than 200. Still a high number. Also unfortunately it doesn’t include every friend or family member. This decision was brought on by my need to a healthier news feed for myself. I like social media. I like the different platforms and prefer FB but not necessarily what was going through my feed, so I did something about it. (This is why I can’t relate to those who complain about social media, it’s what you want it to be so if you don’t like what you see, change it.) Some friends have views that are not in alignment with mine, some friends post pretty vulgar things (I’m not innocent there either but prefer not to see constant cursing in every one of their posts or atheism type posts either.), some friends will/have come on to my posts to cause drama – push an opinion – or even to blast a friend, myself or others; none of these things will be tolerated repeatedly anymore…. Remember, while you still want to see posts from friends/family – you may not want to see them all the time for many reasons. This is when you can just go to their page and view it when you want to check in. No harm no foul. It’s your feed. You don’t read a magazine article that doesn’t interest you either usually right? Me either. The ‘close friends’ list is now my default privacy setting for posts. (Note this is also helpful to prevent page stalkers, employment researchers if you’re applying for jobs etc to only view what you chose the public to be able to view.)

Then there are some friends that you don’t want to see anything other than what you set to public. Those friends go in the ‘restricted’ list. They’ll only see anything you manually set to public. These are friends that you want to regulate what they see of yours. I see many people do this with coworkers, bosses, etc. I personally do not friend bosses/coworkers unless I have a relationship with them outside of the office. This eliminates alot of needless issues and drama.

Take into account that this is what this boils down to for post privacy – Public is seen by all, even restricted list friends. Friends is seen by any friend on your account that is not in your restricted list. Close friends list is seen by only those you’ve placed in that list.

In the time that I’ve had my settings changed, only have posted to public when I wanted that post seen by all, and defaulted to ‘close friends’ list only some things have been noticeable. My closest friends and family are seeing more of my posts and we’re interacting more online than just the usual ‘likes’. My friends and family who are on my restricted list are not even liking or interacting with my friends or public posts, therefore they must not be checking in on my page or me. My family who has obviously unfollowed me as well, is also not checking in unless there’s a tag for someone else that they want to interact with – this shows to me that I did in fact make a wise decision by not putting them on my default list! I’m seeing more and more posts that pertain to my life and likes from pages/groups since I cleaned house. My friends who want to interact with me are seeing me more also so therefore it’s a win all the way around. Truth is, it’s been enlightening.

I’m constantly tweaking my feed now according to how I’d prefer it. When I see something too much, I’m clicking to hide post – so FB shows me less of that. I’m hiding sponsored ads that are irrelevant to me (example, I prefer not to see birth control medicine sponsored ads so I hide them until they stop completely – usually 2-3 times or so.) If someone I do want to see posts from is over posting something I dislike but I don’t want to boot them, I’ll hide a post or two so they show up a bit less. My friends who are always posting helpful info, motivation, family pics etc. – I like/love those posts and comment usually – I want more of that. Group posts from groups that are very relevant to my life – I like posts there as well, comment when necessary or I want to… this tends to show me more from that group on a regular basis. The more you interact with a person, page, group – the more you’ll see it.

I felt a bit elusive? no, not the word I want. Hidden? No…. fastidious maybe…. I’m not trying to exclude anyone from my life but, I need my social media to be more of what I want and less of a blurry, messy, cluster of nonsense that is just useless to me.

What I’ve found is this is really good for my mental health. It feels good to know that when I post something, the people that I am not worried about “oh no what will so and so say about this today” anymore. I can post a funny meme and not worry that some random friend will say some kind of absurd comment on my post anymore. I can shelter some from things I know they’d prefer not to view – I have some who don’t agree with some opinions so I can shelter them from my deep personal views or posts this way so they don’t have to feel like they need to publically disagree anymore. It’s a respect thing to me, and it works both ways. There are many reasons why I chose to clean house but I’m sure I’m not the only one who needs to do this. It’s like my living room, you have to keep dusting or eventually some will show back up. I prefer to have a healthier social media account and I’m working towards that. I hope this helps someone out there reading to set their preferences and enjoy these things more. Keeping in touch is important. Social media helps us do that, if we use it right. Just remember if you’re news feed on these platforms is not a pleasant experience and you’re complaining about social media, maybe you just have to clean house a bit. (and remember to give yourself a daily limit!)