Facebook’s “People You May Know” feature suggests new friends for you based on mutual friends, workplaces, schools attended, and other connections. While this can help you reconnect with old friends, many users find it creepy or intrusive. Fortunately, Facebook provides several ways to limit or stop suggested friends from appearing.
Why Does Facebook Show Suggested Friends?
Facebook suggests friends to help you connect with more people you may know. The social network maps out connections between different users to find people linked to your network. Some of the signals Facebook uses to generate suggestions include:
- Having mutual friends
- Went to the same school or worked for the same company
- Joining the same groups or events
- Living in the same area
- Having mutual friends in common
By analyzing these connections, Facebook aims to show you friend recommendations that are relevant, rather than random strangers. However, some users find the accuracy hit-or-miss and would prefer not to see suggestions at all.
How to See Less Suggested Friends on Facebook
Adjust Facebook Ad Preferences
Facebook’s ad preferences impact which ads and sponsored posts you see. Adjusting these can also influence friend recommendations:
- Click the arrow in the top right and select “Settings & Privacy”
- Go to “Settings” and click “Ads”
- Under “Ad settings,” click “Your Information”
- Select “You can see how your Facebook ads were selected” and click “Edit”
- Find “Your categories” and click “Remove All”
Removing interests and categories limits the information Facebook can use to target ads and suggestions. Keep in mind this also affects ads you see around Facebook.
Restrict the Audience for Your Profile
Changing who can see your profile and posts can reduce friend recommendations:
- Go to your profile and click in the top right
- Select “View As” to switch to public view
- Go to “More” and choose “Settings & Privacy”
- Click “Privacy” in the left column
- Under “Who can see your future posts?” select “Friends”
- For “Who can see your friends list?” select “Only Me”
- For “Who can see your Friends’ list?” select “Only Me”
This limits friend recommendations to people you already know rather than strangers.
Limit Old Profile Intro Scrapes
Facebook may still have old profile data it can use for suggestions. You can ask Facebook to not use this:
- Go to “Settings & Privacy” then click “Settings”
- Click “Your Facebook Information” in the left column
- Select “Profile and Tagging”
- Toggle off “Allow search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile”
This prevents search engine scrapes of your profile from being used for recommendations.
How to Hide or Block Suggested Friends
Temporarily Hide Recommendations
You can hide suggested friends for 30 days:
- Hover over a suggestion and click the “X” icon
- Select “Hide this suggestion”
- Choose “Hide for 30 days” to remove it
This works every time a specific suggestion appears. However, other suggestions will still show up.
Permanently Block a Specific Person
Blocking a person prevents them from appearing as a suggestion again:
- Click the three dots next to their name
- Select “Block”
- Choose “Block this person” to confirm
Even if you have mutual friends or connections, blocking someone will stop them from being suggested to you.
Turn Off Suggestions Entirely
You can disable friend recommendations completely in your Facebook settings:
- Go to “Settings & Privacy” then “Settings”
- Click “Privacy” in the left column
- Under “How people can find and contact you,” disable “Do you want Facebook to suggest friends for you?”
This turns off friend suggestions everywhere in Facebook. You won’t see them on your homepage, profile, or anywhere else.
Should You Delete Facebook to Avoid Suggestions?
Deactivating or deleting your Facebook account will obviously stop all friend suggestions. However, this is extreme if you still want to use Facebook casually. Trying the above options to restrict suggestions or turn them off completely lets you keep using Facebook while removing annoying recommendations.
How to Temporarily Deactivate Facebook
If you want a short break from Facebook, you can temporarily deactivate your account:
- Click the arrow in the top right and select “Settings & Privacy”
- Go to “Settings” and click “Your Facebook Information” in the left column
- Choose “Deactivation and Deletion”
- Click “Deactivate Account” and confirm
This disables your account until you log back in with your password. It’s useful if you only need a temporary break from Facebook.
How to Permanently Delete Facebook
To permanently delete your Facebook account:
- Click the arrow in the top right and select “Settings & Privacy”
- Go to “Settings” and click “Your Facebook Information”
- Select “Deactivation and Deletion”
- Choose “Delete Account” and enter your password
- Click “Continue to Account Deletion” and select “Delete Account”
Once your account is deleted, your profile, photos, posts, and everything else is gone. You can never reactivate it.
Conclusion
Facebook’s friend suggestions aim to help you connect with more people you know. But for privacy or other reasons, many users want to disable them. Fortunately, you have options like restricting ad preferences, limiting profile visibility, hiding individual suggestions, or turning off recommendations entirely. Deactivating or deleting Facebook will also stop friend suggestions, but that may be going too far if you still use the network.
Overall, you are in control of what information Facebook can access to generate suggested friends. Adjusting your privacy settings and ad profile provides the most targeted approach to reducing unwanted recommendations. But if you want to eliminate them completely, disabling the feature or taking a break from Facebook are effective nuclear options.