Mute

Overview

Mute is a social media feature that keeps posts from specific accounts or with specific keywords from showing up on your own timeline. Even when you mute someone, the follow relationship stays as it is. If you open their profile page, you can still see their posts. All it does is stop their posts from flowing into your timeline.

Choosing between mute and block

Blocking is a way to cut off a relationship, and the other person may notice. Muting is a way to keep your distance while keeping the relationship, and the other person doesn't find out. This difference is a guide for choosing between them.

For example, when a friend you know offline keeps posting about politics on social media, blocking them could put a crack in your relationship. If you mute them, they still think you're following them, and only your timeline gets quiet. In a question box, there's also the option of temporarily muting notifications about a specific topic to lower your mental load.

Psychological effects of muting

Muting is a technique for securing your "freedom not to look." Information you don't want to see catching your eye on its own is also one of the causes of social media fatigue. Muting helps you shape your timeline into a comfortable space for yourself.

But relying on muting too much tends to bias the information you see. Only the information that suits you is left, and there's a risk of falling into a filter bubble. It's better to use muting not as "a tool for cutting off unpleasant information" but as "a tool for adjusting the priority of information."