It’s easy to feel like you’re constantly being bombarded with notifications on Facebook. Between friend requests, messages, posts, comments, and more, there always seems to be a little red icon somewhere telling you something new has happened. So why exactly do you have so many Facebook notifications, and what can you do about it?
You Have a Lot of Facebook Friends
The more friends and connections you have on Facebook, the more potential notifications you’ll get. Every time one of your friends posts, comments, likes, or interacts with something, you’re likely to get a notification about it. Even if each individual friend isn’t very active, it adds up fast with large networks.
For example, if you have 500 friends and just 10% of them post something on a given day, that’s already 50 new posts you’ll be notified about. Increase that to 20% of your friends posting, and now it’s 100 notifications from posts alone. When you also factor in all the commenting, liking, and other activities, it’s easy to see how hundreds of notifications roll in each day.
Ways to Reduce Notifications from Friends
- Be more selective about who you friend – only accept requests from people you actually know and want to keep up with.
- Go through your friends list and unfriend or unfollow people who aren’t important connections.
- Adjust your notification settings for posts from friends – you can turn them off completely or limit to highlights.
- Interact less with some friends’ posts if you don’t want to keep getting notified about their activity.
You Have a Lot of Follows
It’s not just direct friends who can add to your notifications – following Pages, Groups, and public figures can also quickly lead to an influx of notifications as they post updates. For example, following just 50 different Pages could easily expose you to hundreds of extra notifications as each Page posts content and interacts with followers.
In many cases, people end up following well more than 50 Pages without even realizing it. Over time, liking and following Pages builds up. Unless you specifically unfollow things, the notifications will keep coming in. This is especially true for Pages with very high posting frequencies, such as news and media outlets.
Ways to Reduce Notifications from Follows
- Review Pages and accounts you follow and unfollow ones that aren’t useful.
- Look for large accounts that tend to have a lot of engagement and consider unfollowing them.
- Mute notifications from Pages instead of fully unfollowing if you still want to see posts.
- Turn off notifications from Groups, which can have constant streams of activity.
You’re Very Active
The more you personally interact with things on Facebook, the more notifications you’re going to get back in return. When you like, comment on, and react to lots of posts, you’ll start seeing notifications when people respond and interact with you back. You’re also likely to then get notified when those same people post new things or comment elsewhere.
If you have high activity levels, it builds on itself. Replying to 5 comments might lead to 5 notifications back from those people. And if they each post later, that’s 5 more potential notifications. The notifications snowball as you have active interactions with more accounts.
Ways to Reduce Notifications from Your Own Activity
- Comment and react less often if you don’t want ongoing notifications from those posts.
- Turn off certain notification types for your own activity, like being notified when people react to your posts.
- Limit how many posts you engage with in a session.
- Temporarily snooze notifications after a period of high activity.
You Have Unread Messages
Facebook sends notifications for any unread messages in your inbox. So if you use Messenger a lot or receive messages from friends frequently, there will constantly be new message notifications waiting for you.
Even a handful of ongoing conversations can easily lead to a steady stream of notifications. Let’s say you actively message with 5 close friends. If each person sends just two messages a day on average, that’s already 10 message notifications per day.
Ways to Reduce Message Notifications
- Frequently check your inbox and mark messages as read.
- Use the Facebook website or app more actively so you see new messages right away.
- Turn off chat pop-ups so you aren’t notified about every single new message.
- Snooze notifications during busy periods when you can’t reply.
You Have Notification Filters Turned Off
Facebook lets you filter and prioritize notifications based on categories and senders. For example, you can turn off Game Request notifications, get notified only when certain friends post, or snooze all notifications for a period of time.
If you have all these filters turned off or aren’t using these tools, your notification volume will be much higher. Facebook will notify you about absolutely everything by default until you go in and customize things.
Ways to Use Notification Filters
- Review notification filters and turn off categories you don’t need.
- Prioritize notifications from close friends and important follows.
- Snooze notifications for a few hours when you need a break.
- Turn notifications on and off as needed for different situations.
You Have Unread Group Notifications
Groups can generate a tremendous number of notifications on their own. Every post, comment, reaction, request, and other activity within a group will trigger notifications for members. Just a handful of active groups is enough to fill up your notifications tab quickly.
Since groups constantly have new conversations popping up, it’s unlikely you’ll ever get to a state of having read every new group notification. The second you clear them out, more will take their place. Leaving notifications unread leads to an endless cycle.
Ways to Manage Group Notifications
- Leave groups where you can’t keep up with the notification volume.
- Mute group notifications when needed but remain a member.
- Check in on groups less frequently.
- Turn off email or push notifications from groups.
- Prioritize notifications from your most important groups.
You Have Game Notifications Turned On
Games like Farmville, Words With Friends, and others integrated with Facebook have their own notification settings. You may get alerts about game activity without even realizing it.
Game notifications aren’t enabled by default, but it’s easy to turn them on accidentally. And if you play a lot of games, the notifications can pile up quickly, especially if you have a lot of gaming friends.
Managing Game Notifications
- Review notification settings within each game and turn them off.
- Filter game notifications from the Facebook notifications tab.
- Avoid games with high notification volume.
- Turn off notifications for specific gaming friends.
You Have a Lot of Facebook App Notifications
The Facebook mobile app and Facebook.com also have their own built-in browser notifications you can enable. You may get notified when someone messages you, tags you, or interacts with you even when Facebook isn’t open.
These can be helpful notifications. However, having notifications enabled for multiple different alert types can still flood your notification tray, especially if friends interact with you frequently.
Managing Facebook App Notifications
- Adjust app notification settings to enable notifications only for the most important activities.
- Temporarily disable web/mobile notifications when needed.
- Choose summary notifications instead of real-time ones.
You Have an Ongoing Notification Bug
In some cases, excessive Facebook notifications may actually be caused by a technical glitch. Bugs could cause certain notifications to re-appear, fail to clear properly, or show up with incorrect details or timestamps.
If notifications seem truly excessive and abnormal, with repeat notices or very high volumes, it may point to a bug. Trying the steps above doesn’t seem to help reduce the notification quantity, a bug is likely the culprit.
Fixing Facebook Notification Bugs
- Force quit and relaunch the Facebook app or refresh the browser page.
- Check for Facebook app updates and install if available.
- Clear Facebook app cache and data.
- Report the notification bug to Facebook if it persists.
Conclusion
Facebook notifications can quickly get out of control due to factors like your number of friends and follows, activity levels, unread messages, and notification settings. By reducing friends and follows, interacting less often, using filters, and fine-tuning app notification settings, you can cut down on notification overload.
But at a certain point, notifications are also just an intrinsic part of using social networks actively. The more engaged you are, the more notifications you’ll get. Focus on managing notifications from your most important connections, using tools like snooze and custom filters, and don’t feel like you need to stay on top of every single notification.