There are a few reasons why you may be getting more Facebook notifications about your friends’ posts lately:
Facebook’s Algorithm
Facebook’s news feed algorithm decides what content shows up in your feed and what notifications you receive. The algorithm takes into account things like:
- How often you interact with certain friends
- The type of content you view and engage with
- How recent the content is
- Paid promotions
So if you’ve been actively viewing, liking, commenting on or otherwise engaging with certain friends’ posts lately, Facebook’s algorithm will start putting more of their content in your feed and sending you more notifications about their activity.
The goal is to show you more of what Facebook thinks you want to see, based on your habits and engagement. So increased notifications can mean you’ve been interacting with friends’ posts more than usual.
Friends Posting More
Another straightforward reason is that your friends may simply be posting more content lately.
If you have friends who are going through major life events, traveling, or just sharing more about their day-to-day, you’ll naturally see more of their updates and get more notifications.
Major current events can also lead to increased posting, as people discuss news and issues happening around the world. More posts from friends means more potential notifications for you.
You Have New Friends
Gaining new friends or followers on Facebook can also expose you to more content and notifications.
Each new friend is another source of potential updates in your feed. The more friends you have, the more active posters you’ll come across.
So if you’ve expanded your social network lately by adding new friends, that can translate into seeing more notifications as you start seeing posts from all those new connections.
You Turned on Notifications
Don’t forget to check your own notification settings!
Facebook allows you to tweak notifications for specific people, Pages, Groups and apps. It’s possible you recently turned on notifications for certain friends or topics without realizing it.
To review your notification settings:
- Click the arrow icon in the top right corner
- Go to “Settings & Privacy” then “Settings”
- Choose “Notifications” on the left
Here you can see all your current notification settings and make any changes. Turn off notifications for friends you don’t need to follow as closely.
You Joined New Groups
Joining new Facebook Groups can also increase notifications, since you’ll start seeing all the activity from those group members in your feed.
The more active groups you join, the more potential notification-worthy posts you’ll come across. If you joined some new large groups recently, that could be exposing you to more content.
Try adjusting your Group notifications settings to only get notified about the most important updates like admin announcements.
Pages You Follow Are Posting More
In addition to friends, you may follow some Facebook Pages for brands, organizations, influencers, publishers or public figures.
If the Pages you follow have been ramping up their activity with more frequent posts lately, you’ll naturally get more notifications about their updates.
Review the Pages you currently follow and trim down ones that aren’t relevant to you anymore or that are over-posting.
You Have Notification Badges Turned On
Facebook’s notification badges show a little number counter on apps and tabs when you have unread notifications.
Having these badges enabled makes notifications more visible and hard to ignore. If you have the badges turned on, you’ll likely be accessing and clearing notifications more frequently.
To turn off badges:
- Go to “Settings & Privacy” then “Settings”
- Choose “Notifications”
- Turn off “Show Notification Dots”
With badges disabled, you may end up missing some notifications and interacting less often.
You Made Your Feed More Chronological
In 2022, Facebook introduced more options for how you can view your News Feed.
One option is to switch to a more chronological view rather than algorithmically ranked. A chronological feed shows the most recent posts first regardless of source.
This can increase notifications by exposing you more regularly to recent updates from all connections, rather than just suggested posts. Try switching back to a ranked feed or “Favorites” first if notifications feel overwhelming.
You’re Using Facebook More
One of the biggest factors that can increase notifications is simply using Facebook more often yourself.
The more time you spend actively scrolling and engaging with the app, the more opportunities you have to trigger notifications. You see more content from friends, join more groups, follow more pages, and interact more overall.
If you’ve upped your Facebook usage lately, either intentionally or unintentionally, that naturally leads to crossing paths with more posts and notifications. Try taking a break for a few days and see if your notifications calm down when you check back in.
Tips for Managing Facebook Notifications
If bothersome Facebook notifications are cluttering up your device, here are some tips for keeping them under control:
- Turn off notifications for people or groups you don’t regularly engage with
- Disable less important notification types like “Liked Your Post”
- Temporarily snooze friends who are over-posting short term
- See fewer notifications by checking Facebook less frequently
- Switch to chronological News Feed rather than algorithmic suggestions
- Follow fewer pages that are likely to post frequently
- Leave noisy or irrelevant groups and accounts
- Turn off notification badges/dots so alerts are less visible
- Adjust your overall device notification settings
With some adjustments to your settings and habits, you can achieve better balance with notifications that feel informative but not disruptive.
Conclusion
Seeing more friend content and notifications on Facebook lately can be attributed to factors like increased engagement, new connections, more posting activity, changes in your settings or habits, and the platform’s algorithm pushing certain content. Evaluate your notification settings, evaluate the accounts you follow, and consider taking short breaks from Facebook if needed to control notification overload. With a few tweaks, you can curate notifications to show you the updates that matter most.
Additional sections
When do Facebook notifications happen?
Some common triggers for Facebook notifications include:
- When someone tags you in a post or comment
- When someone likes or comments on your post
- When someone accepts your friend request
- When your friends post photos, videos, or status updates
- When someone replies to your comment
- When someone shares your post
- When someone invites you to an event
- When a Facebook Group has new activity
- When someone starts a Facebook Live video
You’ll only get notifications for activity that you’ve chosen to receive alerts about in your settings. But in general, most Facebook notifications stem from direct interactions with your profile or content.
Customizing notification sounds
If you want to change the sound that accompanies Facebook notifications:
- Go to “Settings & Privacy” then “Settings”
- Click on “Notifications”
- Scroll down and click “Edit” next to a notification type
- Tap “Sound” to pick a new alert tone
You can set different sounds for different notification triggers like friends requests, messages, and event invites. Just tap into each notification type to customize it.
Turning off notifications for individual people
To stop getting notified about a specific person’s activity:
- Go to their profile page
- Tap the “Following” button next to their name
- Choose “Get Notifications” > “Off”
This will mute that person’s notifications without unfriending or unfollowing them. You can toggle it back on anytime.
Facebook notification settings on mobile
To access your notification settings on the Facebook mobile app:
- Tap the three-line “hamburger” menu icon
- Go to “Settings & privacy” > “Settings”
- Choose “Notifications”
Here you can toggle overall Facebook notifications on/off, as well as customizing notifications for specific features like posts, stories, messages, and more.
Troubleshooting missing notifications
If you aren’t getting certain Facebook notifications you expect, try:
- Checking notification settings to make sure they are turned on
- Making sure notifications aren’t blocked at the iOS/Android level
- Updating the Facebook app in case of buggy notification features
- Turning notifications off and back on again for the relevant type
- Checking your internet connection
- Restarting your device
- Contacting Facebook support if issues persist
Most notification issues can be fixed with simple app and setting tweaks. But for ongoing problems, it may require troubleshooting with Facebook’s help center.
Managing notifications across multiple devices
When you use Facebook across different devices, your notifications sync and show up everywhere by default.
To disable notifications on specific devices:
- Open Facebook settings
- Go to “Notifications”
- Toggle off the device(s) you want to stop getting alerts
This way you can choose to only get notified about Facebook activity when on your phone for instance, and avoid desktop or tablet alerts.
Notification overload
If Facebook notifications become an anxiety-inducing deluge, you may need to:
- Turn off notifications entirely for a while
- Leave groups and unfollow pages contributing excess alerts
- Adjust News Feed to “Favorites” first rather than algorithmic suggestions
- Snooze or unfollow friends who post too frequently
- Take a complete Facebook break to reset your habits
Over time, you can tweak settings to filter notifications down to occasional relevant highlights rather than constant over-stimulation.
Mobile notification settings
In addition to Facebook’s built-in notification settings, you can also manage alerts at the overall iOS or Android level:
- iOS: Settings > Notifications > Select app > Adjust notifications
- Android: Settings > Apps & notifications > Notifications > App notifications
Here you can toggle Facebook notifications on/off completely, override in-app settings, and customize alerts based on priority, lock screen visibility, sounds and more.
Facebook notification experiments
Facebook is constantly running experiments to test out changes to notifications and other features.
You may notice your Facebook notifications working differently due to being randomly selected for a test. However, experiments are temporary and your notification settings will not be permanently impacted.
If strange notification behavior persists, it may be an actual bug rather than an experiment. Check Facebook’s Known Issues page and file a report if needed.
Key Takeaways
To recap, some of the key reasons you may be seeing more Facebook notifications include:
- Increased activity and posts from friends
- More interactions and connections on your account
- Changes to News Feed algorithm and sorting
- New group memberships with active posting
- Following more pages that update frequently
- Alterations to your notification settings
- Using Facebook more often yourself
Monitor your notification settings, be selective about who you follow, and take Facebook breaks if needed. With some adjustments, you can have control over the notifications you receive.