Phillip Harrington dot com

Facebook can be highly enjoyable, but also very annoying. Between app invites, mystery friends and requests, friends blabbering on your ‘Live News’ page, there’s a lot that can get in the way of having a pleasant experience. Here’s are nine ways I manage to keep the noise to a minimum so I can enjoy what I enjoy about it: my friends.

Updated! 17-Nov-2009

Friends

One: I curate my friend’s list every few months or so. Yeah, like in a museum. I drop people like 3rd period French all the time. This is something I do – sorry – mercilessly.

I believe in being friends with people I’m really friends with (obvious?). This goes against the popular wisdom that the broader your social network the better (ala a Wired mag article a few months ago). In that vein, if new people show up and we become friends, I’ll keep them on my list as long as we start to interact once in a while. Beyond that, buh bye.

I don’t add recruiters, and I don’t accept ‘I’d like to network for business’ type requests. Go on LinkedIn already. Or if I do add them, I consider it a trial, and fall back to the previous idea.

I remove (or do not add) anybody I would purposefully not be friends with in real life. I mean this not in the ‘We’re not really friends’ way, but in the ‘I do not want to be your friend’ way, if you catch my meaning. Why have their face popping up in my book all the time if it only brings up negative feelings?

Using my mouse like a machete, I’ve unfriended friends who I’ve fallen out with, ex-girlfriends, friends of ex’s, and so on. I never friended the ex-wife. No point to any of it. I’m there to have fun and enjoy the people who are in my life now.

Two: When I get a friend request from someone I don’t know, or don’t remember, I don’t add them right away. Instead I message them from the invite, and say ‘My apologies, but I’m forgetful. How do we know each other?’ Nine times out of ten they don’t respond, and I can ignore the request guilt free. My brain is forgetful. I’ve accepted this, so I work with it.

Apps

Three: I do not add many apps. I think apps are a colossal waste of time. A titanic waste, even. Herculean. I have a few that I like, but I hardly use them. If you’re into them, groovy. Enjoy. Not me, boy.

No, I do not want to be handed a skunk, get involved in a mob hit, find out which Care Bear I am, collect virtual knick knacks, or any of that crap. People are important. Web developers jerking off with the apps platform are not. If you want to connect with me, connect with me on a personal level. Call me a spoil sport (You’re a spoil sport, Phil!)

Four: When my friends invite me to join annoying apps, I don’t click ‘ignore’, I click the ‘block this application’ link in the invite. I never get a request from that application again.

I find that several goofy, well meaning friends will invite you to the app du jour. The ‘ignore’ link will not stop multiple invites to the same app. I’ve blocked probably over 30 apps.

The Wall

Five: I think the ‘wall’ is pretty much the killer app of Facebook. I use the ‘Live News’ view since it’s got everything (that I haven’t blocked) and it updates realtime. The difference between ‘Live News’ and ‘News’ is that ‘News’ is selective. I get the difference, but yeah – I don’t get the point of having both either.

Six: On the wall, if you hover over the top right corner of a post, you can select ‘hide’. It’s a drop-down menu.

If someone has posted an update from an app (farmville anyone?) you can choose the second option in the drop-down which hides all posts from that app (hooray), regardless of what friend posted it. This second option is only on posts from an app (and maybe some other things too? Not sure.)

With the first option on the drop-down, you can hide posts from a particular friend. This is a polite way to do ’sure, we’ll be friends on facebook’ but not really. But, if you’re going to hide them anyway, consider un-friending them.

Fans/Groups

Seven: I’ll be a member of a group or fan of something a friend suggested, if it’s something they are actually involved with. Being a fan of their band, their Etsy shop, and so on.

If I become a fan, and if I really can’t stand it, I’ll simply quietly drop out later. I drop groups or stop being fans of things who never update.

I have fanned/joined a bunch of groups, mostly for the sake of stating preferences and aligning with things I identify with, but I’m re-examining this concept (the concept of identity in general), and I’ll probably leave/un-fan a lot of these things.

Photos

Eight: You can un-tag yourself from a friend’s photo that you don’t want to be tagged in. In this way I can keep my ‘Photos of Phillip’ area clear of old photos. Or I can use this if, God forbid, I end up in some photo of a drunk moron doing goatse (not that I’m often invited to those kinds of parties ).

Notifications

Nine: This is where I differ from the above noise reduction. I have turned on all of the email notifications, especially the ‘when someone comments on your stuff’ or ‘when a friend comments on something you’ve commented on’.

This helps me keep up with the conversation. To me, this is what makes Facebook so fun.

Mobile

I use the photo upload of my Palm Centro’s Facebook app quite frequently. No real tip here, It’s just fun.

Opinion: The ‘Dislike Button’

C’mon, people. Seriously? Either scroll past, or hide the person or app. How demoralizing would it be to see notifications like, ‘Fred dislikes your status update’, or ‘157 people dislike this’. Complaints are pure ego.

Down with Summaries!

Let me know if you find these ideas useful.

Update 17-Nov-2009

To put it bluntly, after a period of time, I remove people who have died from my friend’s list. I don’t agree with memorials in tacky or inappropriate places, which I’ll blog about another time.