How to Reject Someone on Social Media
I have to deal with so much nonsense on social media that I feel like shutting down almost every site I visit at least once a week. You probably had this feeling too – perhaps because of an annoying friend, a tendency that refuses to die, or some kind of political discourse filled with racism and idiocy.
While you are as unlikely to leave your favorite sites as I am, there are many ways to digitally fly your flag and say “enough, enough,” even if you’re not actually telling the other person how reprehensible it is. , abusive or sad behavior. If you have little patience, simply severing all digital connections with people who annoy you is usually all you have to do. But if you don’t like swinging your banhammer at the first attack, most sites offer you different ways to fuel your anger.
Zero rage: ignore it and move on
This is both the easiest and most difficult thing you can do when you see something online that really gnaws at you. I find it funny that I can usually ignore or turn off shitty comments from people and terrible personalities in real life, but I find it much more difficult to silence my need to tell them how stupid they are when they show up on my Twitter or Facebook feeds.
If you are the type of person who cannot resist a cocky line, you will have to spend some time learning how to let it go. Elsa can do it; you can too. Scroll through past posts or comments that annoy you. Don’t go to a person’s profile to worry about all the other terrible things they think. Don’t text one friend with whom you talk all the time about things that piss you off, and add this latest crime to the conversation queue. Just move on.
If that’s any consolation, then the concept of “not responding to things that drive you crazy” is much easier to master than “resisting the urge to say the last word when you’re in the midst of the internet battle,” so there is one.
Rage, Level One: An Attempt at Rational Discourse
You have bitten a bullet and are now communicating with someone who made you angry with some stupid thing he said. This is fine. Instead of opening your line by reminding your friend of the chorus from that CeeLo song, try reaching out like a human being. It will be considerably more difficult given the level of stupidity of the commenter, but getting the upper hand – or using thoughtful counterpoint instead of exploding capital letters – can allow both of you to have a meaningful conversation.
However, there is no guarantee that your opponent will ever see your point of view. They will probably redouble their attention on what upset you, but that’s okay. Stay on the high road and you can probably (eventually) get away from the conversation without (too) getting angry.
Which reminded me. One of the most important parts of rational discourse is knowing when to leave. Give your play, and if you think you are talking to a brick wall, bow down. You can’t win all odds, and don’t try to.
Rage level two: remove annoyance, but not completely.
If someone’s content (or the frequency of their posting) always makes you stressful and you either chatted with them (as an adult) or don’t even want to spend your time chatting, you don’t need to completely squeeze them out of your online life. If they have aquiline eyes, they will notice a change in your relationship, and this will lead to an even more awkward conversation later on. Believe me.
Instead, your favorite social service probably has some kind of tool you can use to remove an intruder’s contribution to the world from your feed, like Twitter mute, Instagram mute , Facebook, Repeat (or unsubscribe ), and so on. You will be able to keep in touch with that person and still see what they are doing as your “friend,” but you don’t have to actually look at their updates unless you initiate.
Appendix: flesh out mute
If a service gives you the option to mute or unmute a person’s microphone, this is usually the on / off switch. However, if you’re lucky, your platform will let you customize the mute based on how annoyed you are.
Facebook is the first (and only) example that comes to mind, but this is probably where you’ll be using these features the most. As always, you will get different options depending on whether you interact with Facebook through a desktop / laptop browser or a mobile app.
On the desktop, when you click on a person’s profile page, you’ll see the classic Friends and Subscription boxes in the lower-right corner of their covers. While Facebook gives you tons of options to see more of them in your feed, you really only have two to remove: unsubscribe and unsubscribe.
Open the Facebook app on your smartphone or tablet and go to the person’s profile and you’ll see the Friends and Subscribe buttons again. The Subscribe button gives you the same Unsubscribe or See First options as the web version of Facebook. However, click on Friends and you will now see the Take a Break option.
When you click on this button, an additional screen opens where you can limit the number of people you see on Facebook (which is different from unsubscribing from them), hide your messages from them (your “limited” list) and change, can whether they see your past. posts (or whether you are tagged in theirs, or in any other post in which you both are tagged).
If you’re lucky, you may also have the option to postpone other people on Facebook, which will result in them being excluded from your newsfeed for 30 days. I’ve never seen this on my Facebook, so it’s possible that only a subset of users can do this ( if the feature promoted by Facebook still exists ).
Appendix: Maybe it’s the topic, not the person
You may not mind most of a person’s posts, but certain topics they bring up, like politics, drive you crazy. Depending on the service, you can remove any mention of the topics calling you, which may be a way to maintain your friendship with people whose opinion on the indicated topics you find deplorable.
On Twitter, for example, you can turn off certain keywords on your home timeline, as well as your mentions (from someone or just people you don’t follow). You can also renew this thematic ban indefinitely or at one of three time intervals: 24 hours, seven days, or 30 days.
While Facebook has previously tested a similar feature, it looks like it didn’t break the barrier for the company. However, you can use a browser extension to hide messages with topics you don’t want to see.
It’s the same with YouTube: try the Video Blocker or BlockTube extensions if you want to filter annoying YouTube comments (and videos) by keywords. If you use Twitch a lot, try BetterTTV . It is also worth exploring other common keyword blocking extensions such as Sadblock , Spoiled , Spoiler Protection 2.0, and Trump Filter , for example.
The third level of rage: Stop the cyber friendship
You did your best, but your anger at your cyber buddy is so great that nothing can be done except to cut the connection. And that’s okay. You don’t have to keep others – be they real friends, colleagues, or random internet people – in your digital life. If you’ve had enough, it’s time to remove them and move on.
You should be able to figure out how to pay off friendships on any of the regular social media sites, as you are likely to continually request and confirm connections. Removing a connection isn’t the last and best trick in your digital annoying people toolbox, however. If someone insults you enough to force you to bypass all the other escalation steps described in this article, you can always go for a nuclear strike: block.
If you’re insanely happy – or you’re tired of dealing with assholes all the time – blocking people on whatever social media sites you frequent is an easy way to keep them out of sight, out of your head. On most services, this not only breaks any connection you may have previously had with the person, but it also makes you both ghosts to each other. They shouldn’t be able to request any kind of communication with you, and ideally you won’t be able to see each other’s content (or existence).
While I tend to save the almighty block for the greatest trouble, there are also weeks when I have an irresistible urge to use the simplest method to get someone to shut up for good. Don’t be discouraged if you find that your mouse cursor or finger is hovering over the lock button. It is a powerful tool for making the worst online platforms easier. And that’s great too.