Based on your enthusiasm for Foursquare, I have been getting more into it and am connecting with a variety of different people in my community. Generally it’s good fun and since I only check in when I am in a public setting, I have no worries about privacy with people I don’t know. Except there’s this one guy who uses his checkins to advertise his workshops incessantly and it’s annoying to get those alerts. I want to unfriend him. But how can I do that in Foursquare?
Ah, ain’t the amazing new world of social networking fun and interesting? I have also seen people who use Foursquare checkins as a form of word-of-mouth advertising and I think it’s a pretty ingenious idea if used properly. Unfortunately, it seems more likely that it’s going to be a bit spammy and annoying, particularly if you have checkins show up as alerts on your mobile device or cellphone!
There are two ways to deal with this. One is to set your relation with them such that their updates don’t show up as alerts on your iPhone (or whatever), but the other way, the way you’re asking about, is to just disconnect and jettison them.
Either way, you’ll need to start by going to the Foursquare web site — not using the mobile app — to better manage your friends.
Once you’re there, look for the “Friends” link:
Click on it and you’ll move to the Friends area of the site. Still one more link to click on:
Once you’ve actually clicked on the Friends link that includes a count (and as for me, I can’t believe I have 76 Foursquare friends!) you’ll see a long list of the people with whom you’re connected on Foursquare:
You can see in my little example here that the check box on the right side of the entry for my friend Laura Fitton isn’t checked, while the one for my friend Lori Ruff is: this means that Lori’s updates show up as alerts on my celphone, while Laura’s do not. Why? Because Laura lives in a different city and there’s essentially zero chance we’ll be able to spontaneously bump into each other.
If I wanted to turn off the alerts for Lori, I could simply click the checkbox and they’d stop, but let’s say that I wanted to disconnect / unfriend her entirely. To do that, click on “DELETE” and…
An “OK” click means that the relationship is severed (and I’m pretty sure that they aren’t notified you’ve done that and can only infer it when they realize that they haven’t seen any of your checkins for a while) and a “Cancel” click means you’re still friends.
Hope that helps you gain control of your friend lists on Foursquare!
I just started foursquare the other day and I really like it. I really want to find a good macaroon shop on it. If anyone knows how I would do this I would appreciate some help. I’m still trying figure this all out.
When I first joined foursquare,somehow I friended someone I do not know. I attempted to delete him from my iphone, and no longer get notifications from him. But…..although he does not show up as a friend on my list, his picture and information are still on my iphone. When I try to delete him on my desktop computer, as you have suggested, he does not show up on my friends list. How do I remove him completely from my iphone friends page?
SD, sounds like you turned off his notifications for yourself. Go log in to foursquare.com and look at your friends list, see if he has “notifications” checked or not…
I am new to fouresquare and am one of the few still out there without a facebook account etc. I was overzealous with my checkins when I first started using fouresquare. Then I noticed that I stopped receiving checkin notifications from one of my friends. I still see him as a friend on my app and where he is and that I am still listed as a friend on his. He also said he sees where I’m checked in. I am confused. Does that me he totally unfriended me or just turned off my notifications of check ins? and also his to me.
This is good to know, and thanks for posting it! I have a similar problem that is one step more intense–I friend requested someone who uses 4sq for the same thing (didn’t know this at the moment of request). Now I’m stuck in limbo–I get his notifications but he isn’t in my friends list and I can’t figure out for the life of me how to delete or block him. Any suggestions? When I try to view his profile, it says there’s an error, which makes me think he has some secretive/sneaky privacy setting. Thanks!