Should You Unfriend, Mute, Unfollow, or Block Your Friend?
In this quick five-minute episode, I discuss whether you should unfriend someone who gets on your nerves on social media. Let’s start with Facebook, then Instagram, then briefly touch on Twitter. I’m not going to mention snapchat or TikTok at all because I’m not on them, and I don’t understand them at all. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is the best I can do.
You can listen below or on APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY, or anywhere you like to listen.
Facebook:
If someone you’re barely friends with in real life writes posts that generally upset you, then yes, unfriend that person. It’s not necessary to put up with that person online at all if you’re not connected in real life. But if the person who posts upsetting or annoying things is your actual friend, I suggest unfollowing on Facebook over unfriending.
I will tell how to do that, then why.
You unfollow a Facebook friend by going to the three little dots next to someone’s name. Once you click the dots, there’s a drop down menu with all kinds of options. One option is to unfriend, but that’s not the one you need for this example. The option you want is called unfollow, which means that the person’s posts will never appear in your feed when you’re scrolling. Your stuff might still appear in their feed and you can see their stuff if you purposely visit their page, but you won’t see it unless you make a point to read their posts.
I like this method of dealing with Facebook issues because nobody ever has to know. It solves the problem of getting the posts that are bugging you out of your view and it does no damage to your friendship. Remember, the whole goal of my podcast is to help you keep the drama out of your friendships and this is a great, practical tip. You can also snooze someone’s post for 30 days. Maybe a friend is doing a juice cleanse or the Whole-30 and is posting about it daily for a month. The 30-day snooze is perfect for that kind of situation.
Instagram:
There is a similar option to stop seeing posts from people who really get under your skin. There are also three dots next to someone’s name on Instagram, and there’s an option there to mute your friend.
Mute on Instagram is the same as unfollowing on Facebook. This just a lot of semantics, but it can be confusing and I want to make sure it’s clear. On Facebook you want to unfollow not unfriend when choosing this quiet, simple, non-confrontational option. On Instagram, you want to mute.
The more aggressive option on Facebook is to unfriend. And the more aggressive option on Instagram is to unfollow. The most aggressive options on both, is to block.
Now why don’t I think you should unfriend a Facebook friend and unfollow an Instagram friend simply because their posts are annoying? Unfriending on Facebook and unfollowing a mutual instagram friend is pretty hurtful. Your friend might never know, but they definitely could find out and that would be really hard to explain—especially when options like snooze for Facebook or mute for Instagram exist.
It’s a completely avoidable friendship dilemma. And we are about avoidable dilemmas here.
Twitter has the same three dots next to a name and there’s a mute option there, too.
The good thing about social media algorithms is that it’s totally plausible to say you didn’t see someone’s post if they ask you about it. But it would be awfully hard to explain why you severed a social media connection with someone you are friends with in real life over their juice cleanse. Maybe you don’t feel like seeing their stuff, fine. But how would you explain that you made it so they can’t see yours, which is what happens when you sever the Facebook friendship. For Instagram that’s not true, per se, but they can still find out, and that’s still a hard pill to swallow.
Now, there is a place for the unfriend option on Facebook, the unfollow on instagram, and the block on both, and also on Twitter. If someone is harassing you, yes, sever that social media connection. If someone is being a jerk, criticizing all of your posts, or actually threatening you in any way, it’s block 100%. But if someone is just kind of annoying or posting things you really disagree with, I vote for the hide or mute options.
Why? Because the unfollow or snooze on Facebook, and the mute on Instagram and Twitter is a no-harm solution to a pretty benign problem and we don’t often get such easy solutions in a friendship. This is the lowest hanging fruit of taking space from a friend without hurting anyone’s feelings.
Now of course, I hope none of you mute or snooze me.
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