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With over 200 million users, Facebook can be an amazing tool for keeping up with friends, family and professional contacts. It is great to keep up to date with your friends and family in an easy way (have you noticed the amount of moms that use it?). But you can also reach out to professionals and even do some good: for example, you can use Facebook to plant trees.
However, so many people overusing a social media website that stores incredible amounts of information can lead to scary numbers in terms of energy usage. Did you know that Facebook's monthly electricity bill tops one million USD? Facebook also spends another $500 thousand on bandwidth, and it was reported they have plans to acquire 50 thousand servers this year and the next. That's a lot, and it doesn't include the amount of energy used by people in their houses logging in and spending time on Facebook--without a doubt those numbers are huge.
Now what can you, a single user, do facing all this energy wasting? Learning to use Facebook in a more efficient way will reduce the time you spend logged in and surfing about, and can therefore reduce the amount of energy you spend. At the same time, reducing the amount of media you store—like the stuff you don't use—can cut Facebook's servers some slack. Here are our top tips.
Skim Your Newsfeed:
- Making groups of friends on Facebook
Let's face it, not all of our Facebook "friends" are real, actual friends. And when we have a high number of friends, our newsfeed of updates can be crowded and make us lose time (and energy) searching for the ones we really care about.
This is easy to avoid by setting up groups of our different friends. So for example, if you create a group of 'best friends', you'll get a button on your left-side toolbar that will let you choose to see the updates from that group only.
In order to create groups, just click the small "+ Create" button at the end of the left-side toolbar, give your list a name, and select the friends you'd like to include in the group. Voilá! That's it. The group name will then appear at bottom of your lef-side toolbar and you click on it to see only your "best friends" or "coworkers" updates. - Using the default buttons to filter content
If you're interested in seeing just certain kinds of updates (for example, if you only want to look at the photos your friends have uploaded), you can do so by filtering the content with the buttons on the left-side toolbar. Just click on the Photos, Links, Public Profiles, Video and Notes buttons and you'll get a shorter newsfeed with only those updates. - Hiding certain updates from your Facebook newsfeed
If you're not interested in someone's or an application's updates specifically, you can hide them from your newsfeed permanently and continue saving time.
Just hover over the update's upper right corner and when you see the button "Hide" appear, click to choose "Hide this person's updates" or "Hide (whatever app) updates". They will no longer appear in your homepage until you authorize them back (this is easily done by going to the end of the timeline and clicking on "Show x hidden posts").
Downsize Your Photos and Media:
- Do you really need that many?
Hosting photos and video consumes energy, and most times the photos we upload to most services aren't exactly works of art. It's not that we shouldn't share moments with our friends, but before uploading we should ask ourselves: is it worth it? Do we really need ten different versions of just our face? Do we need the minute-by-minute of a party or could we choose about the ten best pics? So share, but share with care.
If you already think you have too many pictures in your account, just proceed to erase them by going to your profile, photos, the album you'd like to edit, and click "Edit Photos". Click on the checkbox next to "Delete this photo" in each you'd like to see go and then "Save changes". - Tagging yourself and friends in Facebook
Facebook's tagging service allows you to have a picture or video appear on your profile without the need of uploading it again. This way, if you and your friends went to the same party and want to upload pics, you can just arrange for one to upload the photos and the others can tag themselves, instead of putting up several different albums with similar photos that will consume energy in the uploading and hosting processes.
To tag yourself in a photo, go to the pic you'd like to tag and click "Tag this photo." Click on the face you want to identify and then choose the name you'd like to add in the box that will appear. - Combining services: Import YouTube, Flickr and RSS feeds into Facebook
If your photos and videos are on Flickr and YouTube, you don't need to upload again, which will take energy for the upload time and then extra energy for hosting. At the same time, if you have a blog and want the posts to appear on Facebook you don't need to spend extra time logging in and posting the link.
This service has a few built in services that will update your timeline by taking info from Flickr, Digg, YouTube, or any RSS, among others, and will publish those updates automatically.
To set these up, go to your profile, and right below the "What's on your mind?" box you'll see the "Settings" button. Click on that and you'll get a list of services. Click on any, fill in the required info, and you're done.
Update Your Facebook Status and Read Others' Statuses Efficiently:
- Downloading desktop clients that combine Facebook, Twitter
With so many social networks we take part in today, the time we spend updating them all has grown considerably. And so has the energy we need to get this done.
Fortunately, some applications that have come up recently allow us to be in several places at the same time.
Tweetdeck, for example, is a great multi-platform Twitter tool that will also allow you to see your friend's Facebook updates and share any of your Twitter statuses to the website with a simple click, so that you don't have to spend time signing in. Another multi-platform alternative for Social Media status updating efficiency is Seesmic desktop. - Combining chats
If you log in to Facebook to chat with your friends, you can now save the need to have a full website running and just add Facebook chat to an IM software. For example, Adium Mac OS supports several services (including MSN, Yahoo and Gtalk) and now also lets you see your online Facebook friends and chat with them. Another alternative is Digsby, which is currently available for Windows and may be available for Mac and Linux systems soon.
Find more Facebook IM clients at Read Write Web.
Adjust Your Facebook Preferences:
- Choosing to receive fewer e-mails
As sending e-mails is energy consuming (and reviewing and deleting them can be time consuming for you), having too many e-mails sent to you by Facebook with notifications can be a waste.
Just go to the Settings button next to your name on the upper-right corner of the screen and click on the "Account settings" option that will appear on the drop-down menu. There, select the "Notifications" tab and just click "Off" on all the e-mails you don't need. - Adjusting application settings
If you want to save your friends some time and energy by not publishing updates on all the things you do on Facebook, you can do so by changing your Application settings.
Go to "Settings" and then "Application settings" on the upper right corner on the screen and then click on "Edit settings" on those applications you don't want to publish stories about you. The option for them to publish posts about you is usually under the "Additional permissions" tab.
We know using Facebook efficiently will not save the world, but if it can save you considerable amounts of energy and—especially—time to do something else, why not invest a few minutes into saving a ton of time and energy in the long-run?
If you have more tips, share them with us on the comments section!
Learn more about green use of computers and electronics at How to go Green: Gadgets.
While your trimming your Facebook time and energy, make the easiest green move: Fan Planet Green and TreeHugger.
Exploring green social networks? Don't forget to follow us on Twitter @planetgreen.
More on greening your social networks:
6 Ways to Be Efficient and Green on Facebook
Using Twitter for Keeping Up on Green
Using Facebook to Join Up With Green Movements
LinkedIn and Linking to Other Greenies
How MySpace Can Be Your Green Outlet
Social Networking: All Green, All the Time
Got a tip or a post idea for us to write about on Planet Green? Email pgtips (at) treehugger (dot) com.
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