How to turn off reactions on Facebook post

Facebook sends you notifications for just about anything you can think of. Whether someone posts to your timeline, likes or reacts to your post, or sends you a message, Facebook will make sure that you’re aware of it.

While some people may not mind receiving notifications for every little thing that happens on Facebook, others might find some types of notifications more annoying than helpful.

Thankfully, Facebook allows you to customize which types of notifications you receive. In this article, we’ll show you how to turn off notifications for likes and reactions to your Facebook posts on your Android, iPhone, or PC.

How to Turn Off Notifications for Likes & Reactions in the Facebook Mobile App

You can turn off notifications for likes in the Facebook mobile app by toggling off Allow Notifications on Facebook in the More Activity About You category in Notification settings. Here’s how, step-by-step:

  1. Open the Facebook mobile app and sign into your account.
  2. Tap your Profile picture/3 bars in the upper right corner, scroll to the bottom, and tap Settings & Privacy > Settings.
    How to turn off reactions on Facebook post
  3. On the following screen, tap Profile Settings and then Notification settings.
    How to turn off reactions on Facebook post
  4. In Notification Settings, tap More Activity About You. This category controls whether you receive notifications when someone posts to your timeline and likes or reacts to your posts.
    How to turn off reactions on Facebook post
  5. Finally, tap the Toggle icon to the right of Allow notifications on Facebook to toggle off these notifications.
    How to turn off reactions on Facebook post

Turning off Facebook Notifications for Likes & Reactions on PC

You can turn off Facebook notifications for likes on PC by toggling off Allow Notifications on Facebook under the More Activity About You category in Notifications Settings. Here’s how, step-by-step:

  1. Open Facebook.com in your web browser and sign into your account.
  2. Click your Profile picture in the upper right corner of Facebook and select Settings & Privacy > Settings.
    How to turn off reactions on Facebook post
  3. In the leftmost menu of the following screen, click Profile picture/3 bars2 under your name.
    How to turn off reactions on Facebook post
  4. In the right panel, under Notifications Settings click More Activity About You. This category controls whether you receive notifications when someone posts to your timeline and likes or reacts to your posts.
    How to turn off reactions on Facebook post
  5. Finally, click the Toggle icon to the right of Allow Notifications on Facebook to toggle off these notifications.
    How to turn off reactions on Facebook post

Final Thoughts

It’s nice to see notifications for some things on Facebook, but you may not want to be notified about every little thing. Thankfully, Facebook allows you to customize which notifications you want to receive.

Facebook users who want to hide the number of reactions their posts get, and those who would like to shield themselves from seeing other people's reaction counts, can choose to hide both on their Facebook accounts. Like many social media apps that thrive on user interaction, Facebook can be toxic for some people. Apart from worrying about misinformation and exposure to trolls in comments, some users still put a lot of stock in posts that have received a huge amount of likes.

SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY

As much as social media has developed over the years to include useful features and services that optimize everyday life, there's still a part of it that negatively impacts a person's mental wellbeing, especially younger users. The still prevalent like-count culture in apps like Facebook or Instagram is often the source of dread and stress for users who tend to use social media platforms as a means to boost their self-esteem and online popularity in their circles. While garnering a high amount of engagement on the web can certainly boost a person's morale and sense of self-worth in some cases, the lack of high numbers and reaction symbols underneath social media posts can have disastrous effects on mental health.

Related: How To Hide Like Counts On Instagram Posts (& Why You Should)

To try and address this concern, Facebook has added the ability to hide or unhide the number of reactions to a user's posts in the app. To do this on a tablet or mobile phone, launch the Facebook app and tap Menu (hamburger icon) — this will be located on the top-right corner of the screen on an Android device and the bottom-right corner of the screen on an iPhone or iPad. Scroll down and tap Settings & Privacy, then hit Settings. Under Preferences, tap Reaction preferences. Switch on the toggle next to On your posts to hide reaction counts on personal content. Enable On posts from others to stop seeing the total number of reactions from other users. Users can also do this through Facebook's web version by clicking on the dropdown arrow on the top-right corner of the screen. Click Settings & privacy, then click News Feed Preferences. Select Reaction preferences and enable On your posts to hide personal reaction stats from others, On posts from others to stop seeing other people's reaction counts, or both.

The Upside Of Hiding Reaction Counts

Facebook reaction counts

Facebook is constantly trying to combat a multitude of problems on the app, and giving users the ability to hide Facebook reaction stats is a step in the right direction. However, there are certain limitations. While it's true that enabling the On your posts feature will hide a user's reaction count from other people, it doesn't hide the numbers from users themselves. The list of people who've posted reactions to a user's Facebook post can still be viewed, and other people will still see the total number of reactions on posts that were created in other parts of Facebook, such as groups, Marketplace, Events, Pages, and Stories. Another aspect of the hide feature for a Facebook user’s posts is that when turned on, it affects all the posts the user has created and cannot be enabled for specific individual entries.

This doesn't completely defeat the purpose of removing the importance of how many likes a post garners on Facebook, though. When both On your posts and On posts from others options are enabled, Facebook users can do away with the added distraction that post statistics may cause and allow the spotlight to be on the content rather than the amount of attention it gets.

The part of a person's social media-addled brain that prioritizes Facebook posts that have high reaction numbers and considers them as more factual or legitimate than other entries can momentarily be turned off, which can leave more room for impartiality and broad-mindedness. It can also relieve the pressure to be witty or interesting on the app in order to rake in more reactions as a form of reward, and it can eliminate the potentially nagging feeling of unhealthy competition with others who may be faring better on Facebook in terms of reaction counts.

How do I hide my likes and reactions on Facebook?

Next, under the “Preferences” section, tap on “Reaction Preferences”. 3. Finally, enable the toggle for “On your posts” under the “Hide number of reactions” section. It will hide like counts on Facebook for all your posts.