Last year, I deleted my Facebook account. It was great for many reasons. I avoided a lot of toxic chatter and found better ways to fritter my time away.

I have since returned because there is no avoiding that fact that it is the prime tool that many of my friends and acquaintances plan events. I very nearly missed an enjoyable NYE party due to being off Facebook and have since attended a number events that I would have otherwise missed.

However, I’m sliding into bad habits and I needed a way to prevent that. Facebook is very well designed to get its hooks into you, but today, I found a way to temper its impact.

In short, I want to make the feed go away.

Here’s how: User Stylesheets.

For the uninitiated, web sites use a language call CSS to create files call stylesheets that tell the browser how it should display the pages you visit. Everything from the colour of some text, to the location of a box to the shape of your cursor when you roll over a button are controllable via CSS.

Critically, the visibility of a thing can also be controlled.

A User Stylesheet is one that you create (rather than the website designer) and it can be applied to any site you like.

So, with a very simple piece of code, I can make the feed disappear:

[role='feed'] {
    display: none;
}

When I apply this to https://facebook.com, the Feed disappears! HOORAY!!

Now, how do I tell my browser to load my CSS whenever I visit Facebook? For that, you’re going to need a browser extension.

I use an extension called Stylish which is available on Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera.

Once you have installed the plugin, you can install my little CSS file from the UserStyles site.

Now, whenever I visit, I don’t get inundated with the feed, but I can still see events, still use the Messenger and even still create posts and updates.