Turning off Facebook suggestions is possible, but requires navigating through the platform’s complex settings. Facebook’s algorithms are designed to connect users with content and people they may be interested in interacting with. This leads to suggestions for pages to follow, groups to join, and friends to add. While many find this helpful, others may find it invasive or irrelevant. Fortunately, Facebook does allow users to limit suggestions to some extent.
Why does Facebook make suggestions?
Facebook makes suggestions for a few key reasons:
- To connect users with relevant content and people based on their interests, demographics, behavior on Facebook, and connections
- To encourage users to engage more on Facebook by interacting with new pages, groups, and friends
- To collect data on users’ preferences and customize the ads and content they see
Suggestions come from Facebook’s algorithms that analyze each user’s activity. This includes pages and posts you’ve liked, content you’ve engaged with, demographic data, information from your profile, and what your friends and followers do on Facebook. The goal is to keep users engaged on Facebook for longer.
Types of suggestions on Facebook
There are several different categories of suggestions users may see around Facebook:
- Pages to Follow – Suggestions for new pages that Facebook thinks you may be interested in liking or following based on your existing likes, interests, and demographics.
- Groups to Join – Suggestions for public and private groups that match your profile and interests.
- Friends to Add – People you may know like friends of friends or connections based on school, work, location, interests, and other factors.
- Events to Attend – Local events and Facebook events you may like to RSVP for.
- Live Videos to Watch – Links to live stream videos from pages and friends.
- Marketplace Listings – Items for sale nearby or related to your interests.
- Ad Topics – Interest categories used to customize the ads shown to you.
The majority of these suggestions appear along the right side of your Facebook homepage on desktop. On mobile, they may appear scattered throughout the interface.
Should I turn off Facebook suggestions?
Whether or not you want to limit Facebook suggestions depends on your personal preferences:
- If you find the suggestions useful for discovering relevant content and connections, you may want to leave them on.
- If you feel like you’re missing important posts from friends because too many suggestions clutter your feed, limiting them can help.
- If the recommendations are irrelevant or annoying, turning them off can provide a better experience.
- If you’re concerned about privacy, limiting Facebook’s ability to collect data on you reduces how many suggestions they can make.
There are also pros and cons to leaving suggestions on:
Pros
- Find new pages, groups, and friends you may genuinely be interested in
- Customize your ad preferences to see more relevant ads
- Facebook can connect you with localized events and marketplace items
Cons
- Too many irrelevant suggestions can clutter your feed
- Privacy concerns around Facebook collecting additional data about you
- Possibility of seeing recommendations for misinformation or harmful content
How to limit Facebook suggestions
You can limit Facebook suggestions to some extent by following these steps:
Pages to Follow
- Go to the Settings & Privacy menu > Settings
- Select Ads
- Go to Advert Topics > Hide a Topic
- Choose topics to hide recommendations about by toggling them off
Groups to Join
- Go to the Settings & Privacy menu > Settings
- Select Groups
- Toggle off recommendations for suggested groups here
Friends to Add
- Go to your profile and find Friends on the left sidebar
- Click the Find Friends tab > Edit next to “People You May Know”
- Select Off to disable friend recommendations
Marketplace Listings
- Go to Marketplace
- Click the 3 line menu in the top left
- Toggle Off next to “Get recommendations”
Unfortunately, there is no single control to disable all Facebook suggestions at once. You need to go through each setting individually to limit what is recommended to you. And even after disabling suggestions, Facebook may still show some recommendations based on ads and posts from pages you already follow.
Other ways to control what you see
In addition to limiting recommendations, you can control the overall Facebook experience by:
- Unfollowing or unliking pages so their posts no longer show up
- Leaving Facebook groups you no longer wish to see
- Using the Snooze function to temporarily hide a person, page, or group for 30 days
- Unfriending connections you no longer interact with
- Following or subscribing to high-quality pages that post content you enjoy
- Posting more about your own interests and connecting with friends who share them
Conclusion
Facebook suggestions can be helpful for some but annoying for others. While there is no single turn off switch, you can limit recommendations of pages, groups, friends, events, videos, and marketplace listings by going through the settings. Combine this with curating who and what you follow, and you can achieve a more personalized, suggestion-free feed.