Lessons for Old People

Facebook, ever the changing network of social urgency, added a new feature at the end of the summer: Close Friends.

In addition to separating your contacts into lists based on location or connection (college, work, neighborhood association, etc.), you can add friends that you know well or frequently interact with. Facebook added the friends you communicate with most often as a default when this feature rolled out. You may have noticed and removed everyone in a blind panic, or non-gallantly shrugged and carried on with your blase use of the site. (That's what I did!)

The benefit to this feature is that you can keep up with the friends you know better, actually care about, or worry about missing updates from. Their posts will go to the small globe at the top of your page, which is generally reserved for notifications regarding your own activity.



Take it from Facebook: "You can add your best friends to this list to see more of them in your news feed and get notified each time they post."

Facebook explains how to add to your Close Friends list:

And to get less notifications:

There are also smart lists and custom lists, but if you have that many friends, and need that many lists, I'm pretty sure this is not a blog you need. (...I'll probably review it in February anyway.)

Facebook does not notify when you add someone to your Close Friends.  

So stalk away, friends!

This will be the last Lessons for Old People article for 2012. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! I am going to focus on some personal projects in January. I hope to see you in February. As always, e-mail me with posts you'd like to see or any questions you might have.


Additional Resources:
How do I use lists to organize my friends?, Facebook
How do I adjust the notifications I get about Close Friends?, Facebook