Find solution
How do you get rid of friends list on Facebook chat?

Tips for Slashing Facebook Friends

  • I recently moved across 2 states and am working on starting fresh on my Facebook friends. Have you slashed friends on Facebook? What criteria helped you decide who stays and who goes? I don't want to hurt feelings but what's the purpose of someone just hanging out on a friend's list? As it says, I recently moved to a new state. Therefore I have found many of my old Facebook friends not really friends anymore. We don't talk online, and I wouldn't visit with them if I were to go "home". I have previously slashed my friend's list down to under 100 (from about 120 ish) in and shortly after college by first starting with people who wouldn't say "hi" to me if they saw me on the street, then removed people with crazy conspiracy theories and the like. (You know, when you look at a post and say "Yikes!"). Lately I have really wanted to keep going, even though I am only at 84 friends. Today I even went as far as to post an honest opinion to someone I had been holding in for years. Needless to say it felt great, and required me to block some people after. I generally don't share political views -or argue- and most of the people who tend to go off the list first are those who have strong opposite opinions, although I try to get along with everyone's views. (Which is also why I don't talk about it.) Now I am kind of stuck. I think my criteria stands that if we don't talk, they don't interact with me on Facebook, and I wouldn't visit them if I went home, then they should go. But should I ask a couple of the "maybes" how they feel about our friendship? I just want a fresh start without so much baggage and people who aren't real friends. I also want to move toward eventually making friends in my new state, or making new online friends (fresh mefi-er here!). New friends for me can be a challenge because I currently work from home and my husband and I don't do the bar-scene or other things yet where we could make new friends. We also both don't mix co-workers and Facebook. Therefore I don't want to slash to the point of regret. My goal is to be to a place with real friends that share funny or thoughtful content, or regular life updates that I care about, and for them to care about me. I also use Facebook as my primary chat platform before Skype or Text. What helps you decide who to keep and who goes? Have you purged your friends and ever regretted it? Have you chatted with someone about your online friendship? (For instance what you each get out of it..) Should personal/political views play a part? (I am definitely guilty of knowing that they do for many who have been very opinionated, but I'm not sure if should factor into people who are less openly opinionated.) What number of friends have you felt comfortable with? What types of friends have been the best Facebook friends for you? Before you ask, it's not an option to delete my Facebook. I follow many comedians, my in-laws, my parents, other family, and tons of online only friends who live all over the country. I also work in Internet Marketing so not having a Facebook would basically be a crime and not allow me to make the business pages I need. Thank you all in advance!

  • Answer:

    I think FB purging is a beautiful thing. If you want to maintain remote connections with acquaintances, use LinkedIn. For me, it got to the point I was so turned off by some really offensive postings by a high school classmate that I realized very clearly: I want my social networks to exist as a positive supplement (not focal point) to my life. The time I spent scanning random acquaintances' personal posts, or getting sucked into "FB-stalking" old classmates to see who got fat or divorced is time that adds absolutely no value to my day. In fact, I felt like it actively enforced really negative components of my personality. Not to mention I often ate ice cream while doing it. I'm a fairly private person, too, and I felt strongly that I didn't want to broadcast my life to a bunch of strangers. I want FB to function as a way to share important information with friends and family I care about both near and far. I want to hear about cousin's new babies and aunt's random slightly-obnoxious quotes or kitten pictures, as a way of still maintaining a bit of touchstone between us. I realize there's a gazillion lists and sub-settings and meta-sub-settings, but honestly. This thing should be a minor supplement to a robust IRL life, not a part-time job to manage. My basic criteria when I was going through was the following (as I kept some very brief friends made at conferences and deleted people I'd known since Kindergarten): If I am in your city/region with ample time, would I want to get together for coffee or a drink? It worked pretty well. Happy to say I purged nearly half my list, and don't regret it 99% of the time. 1% of the time my base, shallow personality gets the better of me and I REALLY want to see how ugly some girl's baby is. If I come across some former "friend" in my city, I will be perfectly civil to them. If they are offended that we aren't FB friends...well, my general sentiments on their maturity are thus proven. If we have some value to each other on contacts, I'll look forward to linking them on a professional network. I've had a number of old FB'rs reconnect there and the level of interaction is just about perfect. I keep waiting for the day when FB will crest then recede into a thing people think about only when they need to get updated holiday card addresses...

Crystalinne at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

Was this solution helpful to you?

Other answers

I tend to let them stay, but I just silence them so I don't see their updates. Though I did see one test I liked on Facebook today (via reddit). It said, "Like this status if you hate the idea of gay marriage." It had 21 likes, then there was an update that said, "Keep 'em coming so I know who else to unfriend."

cjorgensen

I'm curious what you hope to gain from 'unfriending' someone that you could not gain from simply 'quieting' them on your newsfeed but remaining friends in the background. That way the connection is still there if you ever have regrets down the road and/or one or the other of you wants to get in touch for some reason. For example, when a favorite high school teacher of mine passed away a couple of years ago, I was really glad to be able to connect with high school classmates online and in person and share recollections of her, even though I had/have literally zero contact with these folks otherwise. You never know when circumstances could make it nice to connect with folks again, so absent a huge falling out, I don't see the point of deleting folks rather than simply getting them out of your news feed if they are annoying/irrelevant/uninteresting.

rainbowbrite

The best advice I've ever got on this subject was to look at whose birthday it is, and decide if you want to actually wish them a happy birthday. If you don't, cut them that day. They will almost literally never notice. Everyone's FB is crazy on their birthday.

Medieval Maven

My goal is...for them to care about me Eighty-four people...? Nah. You have to puzzle out what you want out of social media a bit more. I have "friends" I would not recognise, never mind have to figure out a greeting/cut for, that I enjoy because they are: local and always on the ball with brief restaurant recommendations, or they are uploading great photos from abroad, or they are a dear friend's beloved and hilarious aunt or... I actually find those tangential relations like the last to be very nice. So what if you wouldn't go out of your way visit somebody in real life? Facebook et al are marvellous tools for, well, networks. It's not supposed to be just your nearest and dearest. It comes in handy when somebody has a Major Life Event -- rainbowbrite's old teacher is a great example of this. I had my phone number listed and this resulted in a 'Mazel tov!' phone call from a high school friend after I uploaded a snap of my newborn child. A friend in another country just went through a health crisis and through FB crowdfunded the plane tickets for her aunt to fly in and help out with her kids. But should I ask a couple of the "maybes" how they feel about our friendship? Dear me. No. If you want to drop them in the name of reduced baggage and fresh starts, drop them, but nobody wants to discuss that sort of thing. Beware of burning bridges; if you have been for-real friends with somebody in the past and up and friend-dump them for what will appear to be no reason, it may be difficult to 're-friend,' on or off-line.

kmennie

I typically use "Would I say hi to you if I ran into you in public?" as my standard. I am also willing to de-friend if someone expresses egregiously awful political views. I've de-friended a few people over the years for bad social networking manners, especially people who play a ton of those dumb games and invite me to join in multiple times per day. I do less of these things now that "hide" is an option.

Sara C.

As an old broad, I have folks on my Facebook that I see about once every comet. I'm always happy to see how they're doing, what the grandkids look like, and things like that. I guess you de-friend anyone who you don't care about any more, not for any reason, under any circumstance. I only de-friend people who piss me off with uber-conservative, offensive, political shit. YMMV.

Ruthless Bunny

What is the purpose of this? I don't defriend someone unless I genuinely don't like them or want them to be able to see my profile at all. Otherwise, on the newsfeed, I just tell Facebook to stop showing me updates from people I don't care about. You can also limit which updates certain people can see from you. It's not as easy to use as Google+ circles, but you can have different visibility for different people. You are burning bridges for absolutely no reason. And the fact that you decided to "tell off" someone and had to block people as a result makes me think you're the one doing other people the favor by unfriending them.

AppleTurnover

I try to keep mine under 50, because that's where my feed is fairly reasonable in terms of pace and interest. I guess I could hide people instead, but I would rather unfriend people, for reasons keasby described nicely. Criteria: - Fun: Are their posts interesting? - Cultivating relationships: Do we already talk often? Would I like to talk to them more often? - Access: Is this a friend I would like to keep in touch with whom I would not see outside of Facebook? (e.g. more casual friends who live far away) It's sort of like the question of paring down your book collection: Is this book something you will read again? Is it rare and difficult to replace? Is it useful? People I feel no guilt about dropping: - acquaintances I'm not actually talking to for any reason - people I went to school with and no longer live near or share values with - people who post about their every movement - politics/religion posters, see also: pyramid schemes - work contacts; that is what LinkedIn is for! There is one person I would like to unfriend but haven't because it would ruffle feathers, but for the most part my unfriending has gone without comment.

heatherann

fb-f is any Facebook friend in question IF fb-f is not one of your closest of buddies AND no interaction in months >>>>unfriend(fb-f) //unfriend that facebook friend ELSE-IF fb-f spams a lot >>>>unfriend(fb-f) ELSE-IF fb-f posts a lot (as in too much) >>>>IF you can stand it >>>>>>>>continue >>>>ELSE >>>>>>>>unfriend(fb-f) ELSE-IF you are not sure why added this guy AND you are not sure even after checking his profile >>>>unfriend(fb-f) ELSE-IF fb-f pisses you off and dampens your mood by comments or so(all the time) >>>>IF fb-f is one of the closest of buddies >>>>>>>>continue >>>>ELSE >>>>>>>>unfriend(fb-f) ELSE //this is important >>>>IF you care for fb-f in any damn way other than you just being human >>>>>>>>IF that caring is good enough //repeat this for days >>>>>>>>>>>>continue >>>>ELSE >>>>>>>>unfriend(fb-f) Okay, I was just trying to be funny too :-) But this has worked for me. I bought my list from 700+ to 167(current). I also apply this filter : do not add if haven't met in person (but that might just be me) I use Facebook only for messaging those friends who can't give up on Facebook yet - nth else, so I might not understanding the gravity of all this. PS. bug reports will be appreciated.

amar

Load more

Related Q & A:

Just Added Q & A:

Find solution

For every problem there is a solution! Proved by Solucija.

  • Got an issue and looking for advice?

  • Ask Solucija to search every corner of the Web for help.

  • Get workable solutions and helpful tips in a moment.

Just ask Solucija about an issue you face and immediately get a list of ready solutions, answers and tips from other Internet users. We always provide the most suitable and complete answer to your question at the top, along with a few good alternatives below.