Niponwave

Propeller head alert: This tip is meant for really savvy users and not teenagers! Also, beware of rants!

Let’s face it. Facebook is cool but over time it gets almost unusable. The number of friends and connections you make on the site soon get overwhelming and you can no more keep a track of what your near and dear ones are upto! All you get is meaningless updates spamming your newsfeed from people in whose life you have little interest. With me so far? Read on!

The point of this post is what you can do to take control of your Facebook life! Let’s first take a quick look at how the enormous mess on Facebook builds up.

1. Lame Games - I effing hate the game stories spamming the newsfeed! *bleargh*
   Honestly I have no interest in your virtual farm life. Please stop posting your game updates and make Facebook a painless experience for all of us!
2. Stupid Apps & Quizzes - Some people can really go crazy with them!
   No I do not want to know who are your top 10 best friends. If play you must, please don’t publish! And if you publish, don’t tag me for chrissake! (Relaxation for very close friends, they can tag me)
3. Uncool Friends - This deeply insightful comic says it all about them - How to Suck at Facebook
   
   Get a friggin’ life!
4. Too many friends - I only add people I know. But let’s face it, I don’t want to follow everyone’s life in detail. I only want to see updates from:
   1. Friends I really care about.
   2. Friends who may not be that close but still post quality updates to make the Facebook stream interesting enough.
5. Pages - Pages are probably the next best thing ever happened on FB after poke. LOL No seriously, pages add much value but all those updates from scores of pages we end up LIKE-ing flood the timeline burying the personal stories deep down :/
   I don’t want to get spammed by your discount offers!

WHAT YOU CAN DO
See I don’t want to be a spoilsport. Thing is, I take Facebook seriously. I try to keep it very personal. I want to use it to interact with friends and connections I really care about. So here’s what I do to keep my Facebook life in control.

Hide Hide Hide
Hide all the crazy games, quizzes and apps. All the uncool friends. Anyone I don’t want to follow. And all the pages, most of them at least.

• I have hidden some 900 apps, about 80 pages and nearly half of my friends from the newsfeed.
• Remember, I get filtered updates i.e. stories from my desired friends by clicking on Top News on the homepage, which is my default setting anyway.
• To see updates from friends I have hidden, I click on Most Recent.

Untag Untag Untag!
When a friend tags me in a photo titled Friends who will go to hell generated by some stupid app, I immediately untag myself because -

1. I want to keep my photostream clean.
2. Every comment that follows on that photo adds to notification spam!

Block ‘em apps
Some apps have this bad habit of posting on friend’s walls! As if spamming the timeline wasn’t enough, they want to spam my wall too. I block them all! >:(

Lists lists lists
So far what I have mentioned pretty much takes care of newsfeed cr*p. But what about keeping unwanted friends from commenting on your wall? Deleting them sounds too simplistic. I take care of that by

1. Creating friend lists
2. making an appropriate use of Facebook privacy settings.

An elaborate discussion on the same is beyond the scope of this treatise. But I promise to write an in-depth guide tackling the issue. Soon, very soon.

I am sure with this article as your reference, you are all set on your quest to Facebook nirvana! Cheers!