Empower Your Feed: How to Control What You See on Social Media
Learn simple tips to control what you see on social media feed, filter unwanted content, and enjoy a more personalized experience.
You’ve probably noticed that your social media feed sometimes shows content that doesn’t match your interests. Fortunately, you can easily control what you see on social media by adjusting the settings in your favorite apps. Here are some simple tweaks to help personalize your feed!
Table of Contents
How to Control What You See on Social Media
Don’t Engage with Posts You Don’t Want to See
On sites like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, social media algorithms greatly influence the material you see. To suggest content you’re likely to like, these algorithms examine the kinds of posts you interact with, including likes, comments, shares and saves.
Understanding how these algorithms work is crucial for curating your social media experience. Key factor is your engagement with the content. If you interact with posts that upset or offend you even if it’s just to express your feelings, you’re signaling to the algorithm that you want to see more of that type of content.
Don’t interact with posts you don’t want to see if you want more control over what shows up in your feeds. This contains:
- Don’t remark: Don’t leave a remark on posts that make you angry, sad, or disrespectful.
- Skipping Saves and Shares: Avoid saving or sharing information that doesn’t appeal to you because doing so encourages the algorithm to further display related items to you in the future.
By being mindful of the type of content you interact with you can improve your social media experience. Focus on engaging with content that brings you joy or adds value to your feed. This way, you’ll help the algorithms understand your preferences and create a more enjoyable online environment tailored to your interests.
Taking control of your social media feeds can lead to a more positive and satisfying experience so remember to choose wisely when interacting with posts!
Hide Posts and Mark Them as Not Interesting
Although Social media algorithms typically suggest information that aligns with your interests, occasionally you may still come across things that you find objectionable. When that occurs, it could be tempting to post a critical comment in an attempt to prevent similar stuff from appearing. This could backfire, though, as comments continue to tell the algorithm that you’re interested in that kind of content, which could result in additional postings that are similar to it.
What can you do, then, if you encounter undesirable content? Here are two easy choices:
- Scroll Past: Just ignore the post and keep scrolling. This way, you don’t engage with it at all.
- Hide the Post: Most social media platforms allow you to hide posts or mark them as “Not Interested.” This helps the algorithm understand that you don’t want to see similar content in the future.
Here’s how to do it on some popular platforms:
- On Instagram: Tap the three dots in the top right corner of the post and select “Hide.” This will remove it from your feed and help improve your suggestions.
- On TikTok: Long-press on video and choose “Not Interested.” This tells the algorithm not to show you similar videos again.
By hiding unwanted content you help the algorithm show you posts that you actually enjoy. This way, you can make your social media experience more enjoyable!
Unfollow Pages That Share Content You Don’t Enjoy
Sometimes, best way to solve a problem is to remove it entirely. If you keep seeing posts you dislike from a specific page instead of just hiding their posts or marking them as “Not Interested,” a better solution is to simply unfollow them.
Most social media platforms have two main types of feeds:
- Algorithmic Feed: This shows you new content based on your activity and interests.
- Friends/Following Feed: This displays posts from the pages and people you follow.
In addition to preventing their posts from showing up in your feed, unfollowing accounts that share stuff you no longer find interesting also improves algorithm’s understanding of your preferences. This reduces chances of similar content showing up in your algorithmic feed in the future.
Mute or Snooze Accounts
Sometimes, I hesitate to unfollow certain people whose content I don’t enjoy especially if they might notice. While it’s easy to unfollow big influencers, it can feel more personal when it’s someone you know.
In these cases, instead of unfollowing you can Mute or Snooze their account on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. When you mute or snooze someone, their posts and stories won’t show up in your feed but they can still see your posts if they follow you—and they won’t be notified that you muted or snoozed them, so there’s no awkwardness.
To mute someone on Instagram: go to their profile, tap “Following,” select “Mute,” and choose whether to mute their Posts, Stories or Notes.
On Facebook you can snooze someone directly from your News Feed. Just tap three dots on their post & choose “Snooze [Account Name] for 30 days.”
Report Harmful or Upsetting Content
I’ve taken breaks from social media because of the times I’ve seen content that makes me feel uncomfortable. Some accounts post graphic images or videos without adding any warnings and seeing these posts repeatedly can be upsetting.
To deal with this I started reporting content that felt triggering or harmful. Reporting helps stop similar content from appearing on your feed and contributes to a safer online space for everyone.
To report a post just tap the three dots or long-press on it, then select “Report.” You’ll be asked to pick a reason, and once done, you’re helping shape a better experience for yourself and others.
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Turn On NSFW/Sensitive Content Filters
Sensitive/NSFW Particularly on sites like Reddit and X (previously Twitter), content filters are really useful. These restrictions are typically located under Content Preferences in your settings.
Depending on the platform, you might see an option to hide all sensitive content or reduce how often it appears. Turning on these filters has greatly cut down the amount of inappropriate posts I see.
Social media should be enjoyable but seeing upsetting or unwanted content can make it stressful. By using these filters and the tips above, you can make your feed more enjoyable!
