Taking Back Control: How to Disable Facebook‘s Friend Suggestions
Are you tired of Facebook‘s constant notifications about new friend recommendations? Do these suggestions feel irrelevant, invasive, or outright annoying after awhile? I fully understand the frustration. The good news is you can take back control.
In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll explain Facebook‘s pervasive friend suggestion feature, why you may want to turn it off, and provide the necessary steps to disable suggestions on both mobile and desktop. I‘ll also dive into how Facebook decides who to recommend along with common issues folks face.
Let‘s get started!
An Overview of Facebook Friend Suggestions
Facebook launched its patented friend suggestion algorithm over 15 years ago as a key way to stimulate growth. The idea was simple – analyze people‘s existing networks and connections to recommend new potential friends. This seeded further viral sharing and growth.
Today over 2.7 billion people have Facebook accounts. To put that massive number into perspective, if Facebook was a country it would be the largest in the world by population!
A key contributor to attracting and retaining all those users is the friend recommendation engine. It uses advanced AI modeling to evaluate thousands of signals and suggest new "friend candidates" that Facebook believes you might genuinely know or want to connect with.
This is why you may frequently see notifications like "You have 3 new friend recommendations" appear in your Facebook feed. For the average user with hundreds of existing connections, the friend algorithm may suggest new people multiple times per week.
Reasons You Might Want to Turn Off Suggestions
While Facebook feels they are doing users a favor by continuously recommending potential new friends, many users understandably find the suggestions annoying, irrelevant, or overwhelming after awhile. Here are some of the top reasons you might wish to disable them entirely:
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Sheer frequency is too distracting ("friend suggestion fatigue")
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Embarrassing or awkward connections surface
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Irrelevant strangers recommended who you‘d never add
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Promotes further Facebook overuse and addiction
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Privacy concerns around data shared to enable suggestions
So in light of factors like these, let‘s dig into actually turning off friend recommendations, step-by-step.
How to Stop Friend Suggestions on Facebook Mobile App
An estimated 95% of Facebook‘s daily active users access via mobile devices. Let‘s begin there.
If your primary way of accessing Facebook is via their iPhone or Android app, here are the necessary steps to disable friend suggestions completely:
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Open Facebook app and tap the "hamburger" menu icon
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Choose Settings & Privacy > Notifications
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Select People You May Know option
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Toggle off Allow Notifications switch
This prevents any notifications telling you about new suggestions. However recommendations could still occasionally appear in other areas like your main feed. So one extra step will disable this entirely:
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Return to Notification Settings
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Tap People You May Know again
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Now toggle off the "Allow notifications from Facebook" switch
That‘s it! With both toggles disabled, Facebook‘s app will no longer display friend recommendations anywhere.
How to Stop Friend Suggestions on Facebook Desktop
Many folks continue to access Facebook primarily through their desktop web browser. If you fall into this camp, here is how to turn off friend suggestions on Facebook via computer:
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Login to Facebook in any desktop browser
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Click the Notification icon in top right and select Settings
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Choose People You May Know option
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Toggle off the Get Facebook Notifications switch
Again similar to mobile, this just prevents explicit notifications. To stop all friend recommendations:
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Re-enter Notification Settings
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Click 3-dot menu alongside People You May Know
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Select Off from the dropdown menu
And with that complete, you‘ll have successfully disabled friend suggestions when using Facebook on your Windows PC or Mac computer going forward. No more pesky notifications or posts about random people you should apparently befriend.
Behind the Scenes: How Facebook‘s Algorithm Decides Your "Friend Matches"
You might be wondering how exactly does Facebook determine which connections to continuously recommend your way. I‘ll explain the core factors powering their state-of-the-art friend suggestion algorithm:
• Analyzing your current social graph – who your existing friends are connected to in their own expanding networks
• Identifying contacts stored locally on your mobile device or computer
• Look for connections based on locations – cities lived in, visited, associated with
• Evaluating pages/interests liked – finding similar people into the same hobbies etc
• Considering past events attended or groups joined
• Assessing overall profile data points and demographics
• Monitoring your own search behavior and clicks for signs of interest
As you can see, by tapping into various facets of your digital footprint and behavior trail, Facebook can surface some pretty accurate friend recommendations. However they still get it wrong fairly regularly or suggest people you simply have zero desire to ever befriend. Hence why disabling can be so desired.
Controlling Profile Visibility – Don‘t Be Suggested to Strangers Either!
Important related note – turning off incoming suggestions only prevents Facebook from recommending potential new friends to you. But it does NOT block your own profile from potentially surfacing as a suggestion to strangers.
Luckily you can easily change settings to opt out of being suggested as a new connection to random people. Here‘s how:
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Visit Facebook Privacy Settings
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Edit Who Can See Your Friends List to Only Me
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Change Who Can See Followed People/Pages to Only Me
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Restrict Who Can Send You Friend Requests to Friends of Friends
With these tighter controls, Facebook will be far less likely to showcase you as a suggested potential friend match to people you don‘t already have some connection to. Help maintain privacy while cutting out unwarranted new friend requests.
Common Friend Suggestion Questions
Over my 10+ years analyzing social media and online privacy, I‘ve fielded tons of questions related to controlling Facebook‘s friendship recommendations. Here are answers to some of the most frequent inquiries:
Does searching for someone cause them to suggest you as a potential friend?
Yes, most data indicates initiating a search does signal interest to Facebook and can trigger that person being recommended your profile afterwards. So search cautiously.
Can I see a list of all past and pending friend recommendations?
Unfortunately Facebook does not maintain any archive or list to review all suggestions. They appear scattered in real-time feed notifications.
Does disabling friend suggestions increase privacy?
Indirectly yes – it prevents additional data sharing that fuels more recommendations. Turning off reviews stops the cycle.
What if I accidentally added someone as a friend? How easy is it to undo?
No worries – you can remove a friend at any time by going to your main friends list, clicking on the person, and selecting Unfriend.
I still see old friends recommended even though we‘re already connected?
This is a common annoyance. Simply re-add the person as a friend and it should stop re-suggesting duplicates.
Do friend suggestions impact children‘s Facebook accounts too?
Yes – Facebook may recommend parent‘s friends or other kids to connect with but privacy settings can help mitigate.
I hope by answering these supplemental questions, it brings greater clarity around controlling Facebook‘s pervasive friend recommendations.
Final Thoughts
Want to enjoy Facebook again without all the noisy interruptions about new friends you should supposedly add? I don‘t blame you one bit! Luckily this guide has outlined the exact steps required to disable friend suggestions on both mobile and desktop.
I not only covered how to stop seeing recommendations but also how Facebook determines who to showcase along with ways to opt out of your own profile surfacing. Follow the recommendations closely including updated privacy configurations and you‘ll be well on your way to a less cluttered, more focused Facebook experience.
Did you find this guide helpful? What other bothersome Facebook features would you like to see covered? Let me know in the comments! I wish you happiness in reclaiming control over your digital spaces.
