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Facebook: New status updates automatically self-destruct

A retro-style feature with a modern twist

Aatif Sulleyman

Friday 20 October 2017 10:35 BST

Picture: (iStock/Getty Images)

Facebook has developed a new feature with a distinctly retro flavour.

The social network is trying to get users to post more text-only status updates.

It’s started testing a new “temporary profile status” feature, which lets users post updates that automatically disappear after a set amount of time.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

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1/1111 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Clean up your News Feed

Most of us are Facebook friends with some people we don’t actually care about, and there are several ways to keep their updates off your News Feed. The easiest option is to head to the column on the left and open News Feed Preferences. From here, you can prioritise friends, unfollow friends, refollow friends you unfollowed in the past and even block specific apps.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Change ad preferences

You can view a list of everything Facebook thinks you’re into and tinker with your ad preferences. A lot more information is displayed on the desktop site than the app, so we’d recommend doing this on a computer. Just open Settings and select Advert Preferences.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Manage notifications

You can get notifications about pretty much anything on Facebook these days, and that can be seriously irritating. Choose what you do and don’t want to be notified about by going into the Settings menu and selecting Notifications. You might be surprised by the number of sections you have to trawl through.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Save data

Facebook automatically plays videos in your News Feed, and that’s a problem if you aren’t on a generous data plan. You can change this by going to Videos in the Settings menu and disabling autoplay. On the app, there’s feature in the left-hand column called Data Saver, which also does this, but reduces the size of pictures too.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Reorder your News feed

You can choose to order the updates that appear in your News Feed by time or importance. Just hit the three buttons next to News Feed Preferences on the Facebook site and choose between Top Stories and Recent Stories.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Download your data

Facebook lets you download all of the immense amounts of data it has on you, including the posts you’ve shared, your messages and photos, ads you’ve clicked on and even the IP addresses that are logged when you log in or out of the site. It’s a lot of information, which you’ll want to get your hands on if you decide to quit the social network.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Find nearby places

Nearby Places is actually a really handy tool, which lets you quickly find and research things like restaurants, hotels, museums and nightlife hotspots around you. It lives in the left-hand column, and also shows useful information like customer ratings, prices and distance.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Find free Wi-Fi

Similarly, Find Wi-Fi is ideal for when you’re bored, running low on data or lost. It shows you all the places in your vicinity that offer free Wi-Fi, so you can head over and either relax or get some work done.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Save things for later

Facebook’s ideal for killing time, but every now and again you’ll stumble across something you’re interested in right as you need to put your phone away. Fortunately, you can save posts for later by hitting the arrow in the top-right corner and selecting the Save option. Everything you save goes straight to the Saved section in the left-hand column.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Control tags

When people tag you in posts or pictures, they don’t have to automatically appear on your profile. You can switch on Facebook’s Review Tags feature by going to Settings and Timeline and Tagging.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Delete your account

To permanently delete your Facebook account, you need to head to Facebook’s Delete Account page. The site can take up to 90 days to process account deletion requests, but once your account's gone, it’s gone. You can deactivate your account instead, by going to Security and Login in the Settings menu.

The feature, which was spotted by a user who shared a screenshot with BuzzFeed, is a nod to Facebook’s early days, when the News Feed was filled with text updates rather than the videos and articles that dominate it today.

The modern twist – that they self-destruct – is almost certainly inspired by Snapchat, which Facebook has copied on numerous occasions over the past year.

The temporary updates have an upper limit of 101 characters, and users can set an expiration date for them and choose whether they appear in the News Feed or just their profile.

As it's currently in testing though, it's not available for everyone to use just yet.

The feature is like a pared-down version of Facebook Stories, the ephemeral photo- and video-sharing tool that sits right on top of the News Feed.

Unusually, while Stories has proven extremely popular on Instagram and WhatsApp, it appears to have completely flopped on Facebook.

According to a recent report, Facebook is struggling to keep young people engaged with the site.

They’re logging into Facebook less frequently, spending less and less time on it and even quitting it altogether, while favouring the likes of Snapchat and Instagram.

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