We cannot ignore Facebook until we quit it. I have many friends on Facebook and I like many pages on Facebook. So news feed was spoiled with useless status updates. And I was unable to get important updates.

Which updates I like to see on Facebook newsfeed and in notification area?

I look for two kinds of updates in news feed: (1) The news I blog about and (2) the news I like to read. I have no time for useless pictures, funny updates and so much inspiring photos. Mostly I like tech news and updates but avoid marketing tips and gadget news. I don’t publish much about blogging but I like blogging tips.

There was no way to get rid of all the stuff and get only important updates. But Facebook has a feature “Show in news Feed” that made my life easier on Facebook. This feature in Facebook is from quite some time but I started using it from last week. I don’t know why I ignored this feature from so long time. Now Facebook has become an effective news source for me. Now I can manage all my friends and never a miss an important update.

How Facebook controls notifications and news in news feed?

If you don’t want to get any kind of update from any of your friend or from a page, Facebook has two solutions for it: (1) Don’t show in news feed and (2) Don’t get notifications. The first option is enabled by default and the second option is disabled by default. So you have to enable or disable these features manually. But if you add your friends in “close friends” list you will get notifications from them. You can manually cancel notification from them.

“Show in news feed” is a great feature that let you control what you want to see in your news feed. If one of your friends is posting so many updates and you are not happy with him you can hide his updates in your news feed. Since you’re his friend you will see his posts in your news feed (homepage) unless you do something for it.

How to check or uncheck “Show in news feed”?

In your news feed; hover mouse pointer over your friend’s name or on a page name. Alternatively you can mouse hover over profile picture of friend or page you like.
On mouse hover you will see the preview of profile or page.
If it’s a page: in preview mouse hover over “Liked” or click on “Liked”, you will see several options, here you have to uncheck the option “Show in news feed” this is enabled by default.
If it’s a profile: mouse hover over the friend’s name and click or “Friends” in preview. You will see some option after clicking on “Friends”, here uncheck “show in news feed” by clicking on it once.

But if you have added some friends in close friend’s list Facebook will notify you about it in notification area along with friend requests and messages. You can stop getting notifications for their posts, just follow above steps but choose “Get notifications”.

How to get back to normal?

If you change your mind and want to get updates from your friends or pages just repeat above steps.