Facebook Quick Tip: Managing The Redesign

With the advent of Facebook's design changes a couple of weeks ago, the News Feed suddenly got to be much more crowded and busier, filled with random comments and observations, links, conversations, photos, and other minutiae.

How do you handle people who talk too much on social media?
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Some of us are noisier than others. Indeed, this article might also be headlined "how to get Mitch Wagner to shut up," because I am most definitely part of the problem. I just love to share on Facebook. How do you get blabbermouths like me to shut up and stop bothering you?

Well, you can un-friend them of course. I've done that with a few people who are active on Facebook, and whom I barely know. But un-friending people has consequences. As obnoxious as your cousin's political links might be, un-friending him could be awkward at the next family Bar Mitzvah.

Fortunately, there's a way to get rid of obnoxious people's updates without un-friending them -- and it's actually pretty simple.

3 Easy Steps To Silence

1. Just look for one of their updates in your news feed, and hover your mouse over it. You'll see the word "Hide" appear in the top-right corner of the update.
2. Click on the word "Hide." You'll see a couple of dropdown selections; one of them the word "Hide" followed by the name of the user -- if you're hiding me, it would say "Hide Mitch." If the noisy user posted using a third-party application, you also get a choice to hide that application.
3. Click on your choice, and you're done.

So, go ahead, hide news items on Facebook from over-sharing motormouths, and enjoy the blessed silence.

Facebook spokeswoman Meredith Chin (who has wisely chosen to ignore my recent friend request) shares some additional tips.

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