Do you wonder how Facebook’s ‘Take a Break’ from a friend feature works? If you Take a Break from a Facebook friend are they blocked? (No) If you invoke Take a Break on a friend, can they still see your posts on your profile? (Yes) Are you tired of seeing updates from certain friends on Facebook? (It happens.) Do you need a break from someone’s constant negative posts? (Who doesn’t?) Will they know that you took a break? (No, not if you don’t tell them.) Here’s everything you need to know about Facebook’s Take a Break feature, including how to do it, and as importantly, how to undo it.
Facebook’s ‘Take a Break’ feature is for those who want to take a step back from certain friends without causing any drama. We all have those friends who share too much, or constantly post about their personal lives, or post too many pictures of their cats or kids (can there really be too many cat pictures?) and it can become overwhelming. With Facebook’s Take a Break feature you can hide their posts, limit the updates you see from them, and even control what they see from you in their newsfeed.
What Does the Facebook Take a Break Feature Do?
Facebook’s ‘Take a Break’ feature helps you manage whose posts you see on Facebook, and also who can see your posts in their newsfeed. By using this feature, you can decide how much or how little you want to see from specific friends.
In addition to limiting their updates and hiding their posts, you can stop your own posts from showing up in their newsfeed. Remember, we said their newsfeed. What this means is that Facebook will stop offering up your posts to them when they are scrolling on Facebook. However they can still go to your profile and see what you have posted there. If you don’t want them to be able to see your posts on your profile you will need to either limit the audience of your posts so as to exclude them, or else block them outright.
How Do You Take a Break from a Facebook Friend?
It’s actually really easy, and relatively painless, to take a break from a Facebook friend. In fact there are a couple of ways to get there.
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First, the two burning questions on most people’s minds when it comes to the Facebook Take a Break feature are:
1. Will my Facebook friend know if I take a break from them?
No.
2. If I use the Facebook Take a Break feature on someone will they still be able to see my posts if they go directly to my profile?
Yes! So, as we mentioned above, if you don’t want them to see your posts at all you will either need to block them, or change your default post audience to exclude them (you do this by clicking on the dropdown below your picture when you start creating a post, by default that dropdown says “Public”, and when you click on it you will be give the option of including only certain friends, or excluding certain friends).
To activate the ‘Take a Break’ feature, go to the profile of the friend you want to take a break from and click on the three dots in the top right corner of their profile. From there select the ‘Block’ option (don’t worry, you’re not going to block them, although if you wanted to block them this is where you would do it). This will generate a popup with the option to block the person, however also on the block popup you will be given the option to Take a Break instead.
Click on the “take a break”. You will then be given the choice to limit the updates you see from this person, to hide their posts from your newsfeed, and to hide your posts and updates from their newsfeed.
You can also take a break from any friend by going directly to:
facebook.com/take_a_break and typing in their name.
How to Undo Take a Break and Stop Taking a Break from a Facebook Friend
To undo ‘Take a Break’, you use the same process: go to your Facebook friend’s Facebook page, click on the three dots, click on Block, click on “take a break”, and then reset the settings back to the default settings.
You can also undo taking a break through your own Facebook settings by going to Settings > Privacy > Blocking and removing your friend from your ‘Restricted’ list.
Facebook’s ‘Take a Break’ feature is a useful addition to the platform, giving users more control over their Facebook experience. It allows you to cut back on seeing certain people’s posts without hurting anyone’s feelings or resorting to drastic measures like unfriending or blocking. So, the next time you feel overwhelmed by a friend’s updates, remember the ‘Take a Break’ feature.
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