How To Message More Than One Person On Facebook

Despite its issues, and there are many, Facebook remains today's main digital public square. Politicians and journalists gravitate toward Twitter, Gen Z loves Snapchat and TikTok, and Facebook fills in the gaps everywhere else.

A few years of scandals have yet to make much of an impact on Facebook's bottom line. In the US and Canada, it had its best-ever quarter for ad revenue in Q4 2020, according to Statista. Monthly active users on the platform in the US/Canada continue to go up. Facebook is not synonymous with "the internet," (despite its best efforts), but its website and apps offer a bevy of personalization options. Read on to awaken your inner social networking guru.

Listen to Music in the Spotify Miniplayer

Spotify Premium members in select markets can now listen to songs and podcasts inside the iOS and Android Facebook app. Spotify Free users can also tap into the new feature via shuffle mode, with ads. When you or a friend share a song to Facebook from the Spotify app, you can press play and listen to it as you continue scrolling through Facebook.

The Inbox You Don't Even Know About

If you've been a Facebook user for a while, then you probably have a folder full of unread messages that you didn't even know existed: the Message Requests folder. This is where Facebook sends all the missives from people you're not currently friends with. It could be filled with old high school flings reaching out or a bunch of Nigerian spammers. Who knows? Only one way to find out!

To review these messages, navigate to Facebook.com, and click theMessenger icon (the word balloon with the lightning bolt) at the top of your Facebook home screen. Click See All in Messenger at the bottom to go full screen. Click the three-dot ellipsis menu icon and select Message Requests. Then you'll see all sorts of messages from strangers.

There may be an entry called See Spam showing those who tried to contact you, but who've likely been kicked off the service after being reported by others. Delete them with joy.

See All the Friends You Requested

What about all the people you asked to be your friend who ignored or deleted your request? Facebook keeps track of that. Go to facebook.com/friends/requests for a list of the people who hate you. Or maybe they just don't check Facebook that much. Probably both.

See Who's Snooping In Your Account

Want to know if someone is logged into your Facebook account without your permission? Navigate to Settings > Security and Login and look for Where You're Logged In. Here, you will find all your active Facebook log-ins from desktop or mobile devices, even across apps (like the Facebook app vs. the Messenger app). It will (usually) provide data on the location, browser, and device. If something seems fishy, log out from individual devices (click thethree-dot menu > Log Out) or all devices at once (scroll to the bottom and click Log Out Of All Sessions). This comes in handy if you log in to a friend's laptop or a public computer and forget to log out.

It's a good idea to throw in some additional layers of security on your Facebook account. Here are three smart things you can do to protect yourself, which you'll find underSettings > Security and Login:

Enable Two-Factor Authentication. It's a good idea to implement 2FA on all your accounts. That means if someone wants to access your account on a new device, they'll need your password and a code generated by an authenticator app or sent via text.
Get alerts about unrecognized logins. If somebody logs in to your account from an unrecognized device or browser, Facebook can let you know. (If you use a VPN, you may notice you get those warnings about yourself if the VPN server is in a different state or country. That's the price of vigilance.)
Designate 3-5 trusted contacts if you get locked out. Trusted Contacts are Facebook friends who can securely help you regain access to your account if you forget your password or lose your mobile device—or a nefarious person breaks in and locks YOU out. You can always change your trusted contacts later, if you no longer trust them.

Restrict 'Friends' From Seeing Posts

You can control who sees your Facebook posts—everyone, friends, friends of friends, or just specific people. If you have "friends" you don't want snooping on all your posts, restrict their access. Go to the profile page of the friend you want to restrict. Click theFriendsbutton in gray (three-dot menu > Friends on mobile), and selectEdit Friends List >Restricted. That friend will no longer see what you post unless it's a public post. You can check who's on this list by going to facebook.com/bookmarks/lists and clicking Restricted.

Unfollow People Without Unfriending

In theory, all your Facebook friends are actually people you like, and want to hear from, but that's not realistic. But it would be rude to defriend your aunt or your chatty high school classmate. Take the easy way out and Unfollow them. Their posts won't appear in your News Feed, but you'll still be "friends" as far as Facebook is concerned. Unfollow from the News Feed by selecting the ellipsis and clicking "Unfollow [friend]." They won't be notified and you can scroll in peace. Re-activate your virtual friendship later by going to Settings & Privacy > News Feed Preferences > Reconnect.

Save Posts for Later

Facebook makes it next to impossible to go back and find something that you whizzed past during a recent scroll. Don't lose that tasty-looking recipe or interesting article; save it for later. Tap theellipsis menuin the top right of any post and selectSave link or Save to watch later from the drop-down menu. This will send the link to your Saved folder. Where's your Saved folder? You actually won't see it until you save something. Then a little purple Saved ribbon appears in your left-hand favorites bar on the desktop; tap the hamburger menu on mobile. Saved Posts don't expire but they might disappear if the original poster deletes it. If you're a prolific saver, you can group your saved items into Collections to keep them organized.

See How Much Time You Spend on Facebook

Are you concerned you spend too much time on Facebook? On the mobile app, you can now see exactly how long you spend on the site each day. Go to thehamburger menu > Settings & Privacy > Your Time on Facebook. The bar chart underSee Time will display how many minutes per day you were on during the last week; swipe left to see Daytime vs. Nighttime usage, and total number of visits. UnderManage Your Time, set a Daily Time Reminder to be notified when you've been on the app a certain amount of time, and create a Quiet Mode schedule to mute push notifications.

You can also use the built-in iOS ScreenTime feature underSettingsto check your overall social network usage, and set a limit—maybe an hour per day on all social media (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more.) Android users can try Digital Wellbeing. There's no desktop equivalent for Facebook.com, but you could use the RescueTime extension to monitor yourself on Facebook and beyond.

Download a Copy of All Your Facebooking

Want your own personal copy of everything you've ever shared on Facebook—for posterity or to save before you delete your account? Every post, every image, every video, every message, and chat conversation (not to mention all the settings you probably don't even think about)? Go toSettings > Your Facebook Information> Download Your Information. Follow the directions from there to decide what you want to download, the time frame you want, and the format the data should arrive in. Select Create File. Depending on how much stuff you have saved on your account, it could take awhile for Facebook to compile it; you'll get a notification when it's ready to download.

Everyone on Facebook will die. Eventually. In anticipation of this unavoidable truth, Facebook lets you name a legacy contact who will manage your account after you are gone. Your legacy contact can write a pinned post for your profile, respond to new friend requests that come after you have passed, and update your profile and cover photo (in case your final image is you in an ironic SpongeBob Halloween costume). They can even download your Facebook data, minus any messages you sent/received.

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You can also choose to have your account deleted after you die. Facebook will send you an annual reminder to check your legacy contact, unless you turn that option off. GoSettings > General > Memorialization Settings > Edit on desktop or Settings > Personal Information > Manage Account on mobile to select or change your legacy contact. If you're a legacy contact for someone who's passed away, use this Memorialization Request form to tell Facebook about the person and ask to get their account memorialized.

Facebook's business is built around providing marketers with detailed information on its users' interests, but you have the ability to keep your ad experience in check. Go toSettings > Ads. The first tab is Advertisers, starting with Advertisers You've Seen Most Recently, which you can hide one by one. You can view a list of all those you've hidden, as well as a list of ads you've clicked if you want to hide them now. Click into Ad Topics and you'll see a few targeted toward you. Click See Fewer to do just that, but you can't really turn them off.

The Ad Settings tab is the most useful, as you can go there to limit the amount of data Facebook gets on you from partners, the categories they use on you, and the businesses that have you in an audience list for targeting. You can even limit the Facebook-created ads you see on other websites. All of these controls are limited, but they're better than nothing. The worst part is you have to click through them one by one.

Apps Can Be Axed in Bulk

What you can bulk delete are the apps and websites that use Facebook for log-ins. Go toSettings > Apps & Websites and you'll see tabs for Active, Expired, and Removed apps/sites. Select a bunch and log out. When you go back to that site/service in the future, it's best to do a login with an email address and password; better yet, use a password manager.

Turn Off Autoplay Videos

Do you hate it when a video starts playing automatically? Kill that "feature." Go toSettings > Videos and set Auto-Play Videos to Off. Stat. You won't regret it. If you do it on the desktop, it also turns off auto-play on your mobile devices, and vice versa.

Stop With the Birthdays

Facebook will tell you every morning who among your friends is celebrating their arrival on Earth. If you hate that and birthdays in general, stop the notifications. Go toSettings > Notifications. There are many things here you can curtail, such as highlights of what you did on that day in the past, activities of your closest friends, the launch of new local Pages, etc. But not far down is the option to turn off the birthdays.

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