Hi everyone! Are you finding the amount of Coronavirus talk on social media overwhelming? I know I am. While deactivating social media accounts may work for some, it didn’t fit for me. So I’ve found a few alternative ways to help reduce the amount of news and gossip you are seeing. This isn’t just Coronavirus specific and will work for anything you don’t want cluttering up your feed. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter will all be covered below, but if there is any more information you wish to know, make sure to ask 🙂
There are a few different ways to reduce the amount of Coronavirus information from showing up on your feed, but it is a work in progress.
The first option is to unfriend the person posting it. This will stop you from seeing all their posts and stories. But it does mean that they won’t be able to see yours either! You can do this by clicking on their profile. On a computer, the option will be right at the top of their page. On the app, you can select the button with a little person on. Here you will get a few options and can select the unfriend.
You can also unfollow someone here. This way you will remain friends but their posts will stop appearing on your news feed until you follow them again.
Your News Feed can offer more temporary solutions. If you click on the 3 dots at the top of a post, lots of options will pop up. You have the choice to snooze someone, this will stop their posts from appearing for up to 30 days, giving you a nice little break. At the end of the 30 days, their posts will start appearing again. If it’s just the post you don’t like, you can hide it. This will remove the post from your news feed and stop similar ones from appearing.
Like Facebook, you can unfollow someone by going to their profile page. Here you click on their follow button and select unfollow. There are also a few other options you could select like Mute. This will stop their posts and stories from appearing in your feed.
You can also do this when on your home page. If you click on the three dots at the top of a post they have shared, similar options will pop up.
Twitter also allows you to unfollow and mute people in the same way Instagram does. But they have a more advanced mute feature that will let you stop specific words (like Coronavirus) and hashtags from showing up on your home page. But it is important to remember you will still see news about Coronavirus on your trending page.
To mute these words, bring up your menu page and select Settings and privacy. Then select notifications and click on muted words. Here you will be able to click on the blue plus button and add any words you want. They don’t have to be Coronavirus specific but if that is something you wish to stop seeing on your feed it is a great place to start.
I hope you found these tips helpful and feel free to share them with anyone who might need them 🙂