An implication of Facebook’s most recent update (which has been there for a few months now) is that you know when your friends read your message. How annoying is that? 

Personally, that should be none of their business. Let’s say you read it and intend to reply to it later for whatever reason, some people probably feel they are being ignored. There are obviously a thousand reasons you can think of why it shouldn’t be there. No matter what, it shouldn’t be there to begin with. It probably causes more problems than it fixes. 

There are a few ways to circumvent this. 

Method 1 - Extensions :
 
There’s an extension in Chrome that allows you to stop them from seeing when you’ve read the message. 

Extension: Link

I tried it out. Apparently based on the reviews, it either works great or there’s one small issue. The issue is that it keeps the messages marked as unread. 

There’s also one more you can try out which works across all browsers (in theory): 

Chat Undetected

So if it works for you, enjoy! If not, read further. 

Method 2 - Hovering over your message: 

For Safari users, you can hover over the message without clicking on it to bring up the full message. So you can read it without having to click on it. It won’t notify the recipient that you’ve read it. 

(Thanks to Cristy for that tip)

Method 3 - E-mail subscriptions:

You can subscribe to getting e-mail alerts for messages. This way you can read the full message in your e-mail without clicking on the message itself. 

(Thanks to Sarah for that tip)

You get fidgety when you’re away from the Internet. Chances are, you also enjoy posting on facebook and seeing who has liked your status updates and pictures. The same effect goes for any other social media site. We’re all addicted in some way. 

Studies show that there’s a good reason for this. 

New research suggests sharing information about yourself has intrinsic value similar to primary rewards like food and sex.

“Recent surveys of Internet use indicate that upwards of 80 per cent of posts to social media sites (such as Twitter) consist simply of announcements about one’s own immediate experiences,” says the paper, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

The Harvard researchers, led by graduate student Diana Tamir, used five studies to see how our brain behaves when we share personal information or “self-disclose.” Does it feel good to do it, and can we see responses in the brain?

The results of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans showed that our brains respond to self-disclosure “in the same way as with primary rewards such as food and sex,” according to the paper. - Source

That may also be the reason why people just aren’t doing it as much. 

The number of unmarried teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 who reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that they’ve had sex has dropped below 50 percent. - Source

Coincidence? I think not. 

It’s ironic how ‘social media’ is making us anti-social. 

For those Pinterest addicts out there, this will be something I am sure you’d like to try.

https://apps.facebook.com/pinviewer/

I was just thinking, if pinterest had a wall and some other basic features, it could be the next facebook, judging from the growth. After all, facebook is starting to turn into a picture sharing medium more than anything else. 

This app, pinviewer, turns your facebook feed into a format that is similar to pinterest. 

Whether you want to use this, or even like it, is up to you. 

Credit to: John Schell for the find!

Recently, being around people and using facebook, I’ve found that a lot of people have been quite surprised by these two features that I felt were almost common knowledge by daily users. They would see me post and ask me about these two features when they saw me use it.  

So chances are these are obvious to you, or you may not know about these two features. 

This post is for those people who may benefit from this and did not know about it before. 

1. Stop Notifications On Old Posts

After you’ve commented on someone’s status, you usually get plenty of notifications that have nothing to do with you. They include all the comments after you. Facebook realized this was an issue and decided that you can opt out of these notifications by clicking on the ‘unfollow post’ button once you post. 

For a while I’d reconsider commenting on someone’s status before this feature was enabled because I just didn’t want annoying notifications. Now it’s no longer an issue. 

2. Edit Your Post

Once you post something, you have a chance to actually edit your post in case you made a mistake. They put this into an update without notifying everyone. 

The key is you’ll have to do it relatively soon after you post. You can’t come back to it in a coupe of minutes, you have a specific window to follow.

Don’t worry about the time shown in the post, that’s simply a lack of adjusting that in post when I made the graphic. 

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So there you have it! Happy posting. 

Since there’s nothing out there that that expresses what is ‘right and wrong’ about using social media, I figured I’d write out some things to keep in mind when using facebook. You’ll be surprised at how often these ‘opinions’ are broken. 

1. If someone is receptive to answering your questions, do not take advantage of their hospitality by asking them on a daily basis, for months on end. You may be surprised that suddenly people avoid you in general. Chances are, you’ll become known as ‘that annoying person’. Unfortunately, this situation is common and not an exaggeration.

2. If you upload a new image, do not tag everyone that you can think of off the top of your head so that it forces people to look at it. It’s very annoying. When people comment, everyone tagged gets an alert. Please refrain. If they like your work and your images, they will find you and comment on your work when they see if. This practice is a quick way of having people avoid you and your work.

3. Do not send public invites to people who have nothing to do with it. What’s that? There’s a party going on in Ontario, you have no idea who I am and you want me to attend tomorrow even though I’m in Hawaii? These days, we’re coming to a realization that we’re adding too many people and we’re figuring out who to unfriend. This makes you a prime target for who to remove.

4. If you have your profile completely private, it may be a good idea to send a message with your friend request with your information so we know what you do and why you may be adding us. It allows the person to know why you want to be their friend. Because we really can’t see anything other than your profile picture.

5. Social media is just that – a means of being socially responsive. If you want people to be responsive to your status updates or work you post, you must also be in practice of letting people know what you think of theirs and interact. If you don’t find many people talking to you, there may be a reason for it. Just like a real relationship, networking works both ways. Be social and involved with your peers and colleagues!

6. Stop sending random page request invites. We receive so many a day. If you want people to like your fan page, keep a link in your info. And at most, you can try sending a personal message, but don’t send a random request for everyone to like your page, it gets annoying as well. At the least, it will mostly be overlooked.

7. We don’t care if you play farmville, cittyville, poopville, or whatever ville you are in, but please don’t invite random friends to join, we really don’t want to and we can barely stand your ‘ville’ updates.

8. Whenever you see someone post up great work, take initiative to comment or even send a message to let them know how much you like it. They really will appreciate it.

9. You know those guys who send you creepy messages and stalk your model friends? You don’t? Well you may be that guy. If you’ve come to a realization that you may be ‘that’ guy. Stop being that guy.

10. Do NOT post your website on someone’s wall, especially if you don’t know them that well, for the purpose of self promotion, especially when that person has a ton of friends. That is pretty much the lowest thing you can do. At the least, it will result in a negative reaction without being told they feel that way. At most, it will end in an unfriend. No positive effect can come from that.

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If for some reason you feel offended by any of these points, that is a good sign. That means you now realize you’ve done something that annoys people because people won’t bother to let you know.

No problem, you’re welcome! At least now you’re on your way to becoming a good facebook friend.

If you’re not offended by any of these points, congratulations, you’re officially awesome! 

Spread the word, because some people need to know. It may just be a good way to tell them they’re annoying, without actually telling them. I’ll take the blame.