How to ignore people on social media without blocking or unfollowing them

This article has been updated. Originally published on May 30, 2018.

Of course, you love your friends and family – but that doesn’t mean you need to hear everything they post on social media. Just a few overly talkative contacts can take up all your attention on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Luckily, these three social networks, as well as instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, offer tools to mute certain contacts — or at least reduce the number of posts you see. They won't know you're ignoring their latest updates, but your social flow will feel much quieter.

How to mute others on Instagram

Instagram offers the option to mute any contact. Under this setting, you won't see their posts…but they won't know. Silence avoids the embarrassment of canceling friends altogether and leaves room so that you can still contact your "bad friends".

Currently, this feature is limited to apps (for Android and iOS) and not to Instagram sites. So if you are online, you need to take tougher steps to unfollow or block noisy contacts – just click on their profile picture and select the relevant option from the drop-down menu.

As for mute, there are two ways to achieve mute: through posts and through one’s profile. If you see a post you don't want to see, click the three dots in the upper right corner of the post, and select Hide . This will lower that person’s post to a lower position in your stream, but will not completely mute them. To do this, select the Must option from the text that replaces the post you just hidden. You can determine the fullness of this mute by selecting Mute posts or Mute posts and stories.

If you already have a troublesome contact, you can go directly to their profile and click on the drop-down menu that appears under their profile. From there, select

Mutate and use the toggle switch to mute their posts, stories, or both. If you want to mute a single story but don't want to mute a post, you need to follow a slightly different process: Click and hold any story badge at the top of the stream and select Mute

. Instagram will take this opportunity to ask if you would also like to mute their posts. Whatever you choose, their story will turn gray and move to the far right of the panel. After that, when you play an unviewed story, it won't show up.

You can also easily unmute Instagram. Click the Follow

drop-down menu on their profile and close the

Mute toggle, or click and hold the gray story bubble to find the Unmute story option. How to pause others on Facebook

Facebook (for Android, iOS, and the web) provides you with several ways to control what you see in your dynamic information flow. This includes the option to filter out some people without actually canceling friends (imagine how big a storm this will cause!). Here is how to use these settings.

Want to temporarily hide someone's post from your stream? Facebook allows you to pause them: click on the three points

in the upper right corner of their post, and select

Pause for 30 days

. After a brief break, their posts will return to your stream. [Related: Make it useful by turning off all the annoying features of Facebook]

Another option is to unfollow someone. This is very similar to mute on Instagram – the person’s posts won’t appear in your stream, but you will be friends with them and keep checking their profile, inviting them to events, sending them messages and other functions. Click or click the three dots at the top of any post to find the Unfollow option. Alternatively, go to their profile page, click the Friends or Follow buttons displayed above their recent posts, and select from the list.

No matter what you do, your contact will not receive any instructions that you have paused or unfollowed them. You can also bring them back to your stream at any time: Go back to their profile page, click or click the

Friends or Follow button to follow them again, or look for " Paused notification and click the Undo button.

How to mute others on Twitter

Like other networks, Twitter (for Android, iOS, and the network) also provides a simple mute feature. Tweets from muted accounts won't show up in your main Twitter timeline, but when you open the conversation thread, they will show up, and replies and mentions from those contacts will still show up in your notifications. Unlike blocking, muting will not change the number of your followers, nor will the other party see you mute it.

To mute someone, visit their profile, click or click the three dots

in the upper right corner of their profile page, and select Mut down. To undo this, open the same menu and select Unmute . You can also mute someone from their tweets: Click on the three dots to the right of the post and select Mut down. Because the tweet will then disappear from the view, if you want to unmute again, you need to return to that person's profile page. Twitter also allows you to view a list of people you have muted. Click or click on the main Twitter menu (three lines) in the upper left corner and navigate to Settings and Privacy > Privacy & Security > Mute > Mute Account

. On this screen, you can also unmute any account by tapping the mute icon.

How to mute instant messaging application

In addition to social media, some of your friends will also send you meaningless instant messaging notifications. To mute it, most popular apps allow you to mute reminders from specific conversations.

In WhatsApp, you can turn off reminders for specific conversations. First, open the thread that has become too noisy. Next, on Android, click on the three dots in the upper right corner; on iOS, click on the group or contact name at the top of the screen. Select the

Must

option and decide whether to mute 8 hours, a week, or always mute the reminder.

If you prefer to chat on Facebook Messenger, you can still turn off notifications. First, open any threads in the conversation list. On Android, click the Info button (an "i" icon) in the upper right corner; on iOS, click the dialogue name at the top. Then click the Must icon at the top of the screen (a bell). Finally, select a time period between 15 minutes and 24 hours, or select Mute notifications until you manually restore them.

[Related: Best Apps for Self-Destructing Messages]

Apple's Message App (iOS only) allows you to adjust the settings of SMS and iMessage threads. To mute any conversation, turn it on, click on the person's name, then click the Infoicon ("i" in the circle), and turn on the Hide reminder switch. Now, the thread will not send you any reminders until you return and enable them again.

If you use Google Hangouts, please note that Google is currently deactivated in favor of Google Chat, and you can also access it through the chat feature in Gmail. The company has automatically moved all your conversations from the Message app to the new platform, which you can do by downloading the new Google Chat app for Android or iOS or (on Android) the Gmail app and clicking the chat button at the bottom of the screen Visit them. To mute notifications on all platforms, open the chat you want to mute and click the name of that person or group chat. Then, use the toggle switch next to notification to mute and unmute them. For users who still have a standalone Hangouts app, open the conversation, click the three dots in the upper right corner, select the option , and close the notifications . After mute the conversation, this setting will sync between all devices where you have Chat or Hangouts installed.

After all these mute operations, you should receive much less annoying notifications. If your phone is still too noisy, consider adjusting the various reminders you receive.

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