Considering the extent to which we live our lives on Facebook, most of us aren’t actually aware of the wealth of tools and toggles that lie beyond the simple newsfeed.
In fact, there are many, many ways Facebook tries to make our lives a little easier – and perhaps a little more interesting – with tricks the majority aren’t even aware of.
Don’t believe me? Let’s try.
Strange phone number calling you? Just search for it.
For all those times you lose your contacts, have a strange number text you in particularly friendly terms, and struggle to work up the courage to ask them who the hell they really are.
Just. Search. The. Number. Right into your search bar.
Oh, and you don’t even have to be Facebook friends with the person calling you to reap the rewards of your stalking status.
Privacy? What privacy?
Tag your friends in a group chat to get their attention in a river of terrible banter.
Group chats can be a vacuum-like vortex of bad jokes, banter and conversations that go on forever about… not a whole lot.
Want to grab someone’s attention, but worried about the message getting lost in a litany of new messages? Just tag them. They’ll get the notification.
Are you mildly offended by your Facebook advertising? Post continues after audio.
Change the colour of your messages.
If you’re ever worried you’re accidentally going to message the wrong group about the wrong thing, just colour code them.
Each group chat on Messenger has settings where you can change the entire colour of the chat. Of course, I found this out the annoying way, when a friend changed all our chats to pink.
Beautiful.
Hate the memories? Block the memories.
Unlike real life, when the memory isn’t a funky tool you can turn on and off, Facebook gives you the option of turning your memories off. Whether it be the death of a loved one, a break-up, or something you’d rather forget, Facebook does, actually, have you covered.
All you have to do is head to the ‘On This Day’ part of your News Feed, click notifications on the top right-hand corner and switch your settings off.
A morbid – but important – one: Putting someone in charge of your account in case of death.
Facebook allows you to nominate someone to control your account when you pass away.
All you need to do is head to your settings, then click on ‘Security’, and lastly, ‘Legacy Contact’. All that’s necessary is typing in the name of your nominated contact. You have the option to send them a message to let them know, but you’re not forced to.
Otherwise, when Facebook becomes aware of your passing, they will be notified.
You can find out exactly how much Facebook knows about you.
We know that Facebook passes on much of our personal information to advertisers, so they can then target relevant ads to us on our feed.
But did you know you can find out how much they know and edit your settings accordingly?
All you have to do is hit the drop-down arrow at the top right-hand corner of your News Feed, and head into your settings.
From there, find the section that says ‘Ads’. Once you get there, scroll down a tad until you find a sub-section that says ‘Your Information’.
This is exactly the stuff you’re looking for.
Have a look in both the 'About You' section and 'Your Categories' to adjust your ad settings. Of course, it won't change everything, but it may just help you understand a little more why you're seeing certain things in your feed.
Get creative with your searches.
If you, um, really want to get your Facebook stalking hat on, you can actually search the photos or statuses other friends have liked.
For example, all you have to do is type into your search bar 'Photos liked by X'.
Do so at your own peril.
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