— If specific posts in your news feed annoy you, you can hide them. Hover over the top right corner of the post, click on the box that pops up, and choose ‘‘hide...’’ That will remove the post from your news feed, although you will still get future updates from that person.

— You can also cut off all updates from a friend. After hiding a specific post in your timeline by that person, click ‘‘change what updates you get from...’’ Under the drop-down menu that comes up, click ‘‘unsubscribe.’’ You can also ignore a person’s Facebook activity by unchecking ‘‘show in news feed,’’ under the same menu that lets you sort friends into ‘‘close friends’’ and ‘‘acquaintances.’’

Curating your news feed in this manner is burdensome if you have hundreds of connections. But the result is less tabloid magazine, more personal messages and cute pictures from people who are actually your friends.

SMALLER CIRCLES

One of the great benefits of Facebook is that it helps you keep in touch with a handful of people who have a shared interest. Hundreds of Facebook friends don’t need to see the intimate interactions I have with a few closer friends. So I created private spheres for smaller circles — smaller than the lists Facebook automatically generates based on your school information, hometown and employer.

I created such a group with three friends — one from England, one from France and one from Los Angeles — I had spent several days with in a small town in Colombia while on vacation. The four of us use that to post silly photos of ourselves from the trip and write each other personal updates. That spares everyone else from having to hear about the next time we’re going to see each other.