Facebook offers you several ways to communicate with old friends and new, former flames, classmates, colleagues and family, too. It is a fun tool for reconnecting and connecting with people and making new friends as well. If you’re more passive as a Facebook user and don’t want people to be able to chat with you, especially if you are logged on while you are at work, you can prevent Facebook Chat boxes that pop up, unannounced and unwelcome, in the lower right corner of your browser window.
If you are not interested in a spur of the moment conversation with someone you have not seen in years, follow these steps to stop popup chat requests.
1) Log on to Facebook and look to the bottom right hand corner of your browser. You will see a bar that says “Chat #” and, to the right of this, a little icon that looks like a notepad with a red number in the corner, your notifications bar. Once you’ve found this bar, move on to the next step.
2) Click on the icon that says “Chat #”. The # indicates how many of your friends are currently online.
3) A window will pop up. It shows you which of your friends are online. At the top of the window, you are given some options. The first says “Friends List” the second says “Options”. Choose Options.
4) Once you click on “Options” a drop down menu will appear. From there, click “Go Offline”. When you click “Go Offline”, you will still be logged on to Facebook, but logged off from Facebook chat. Simply put, you will be on Facebook but you won’t show up as being available to chat.
Once you have gone offline, your friend counter will not show up so you won’t be able to see who is online to chat. Should you decide you want to go back online, simply click on the “Chat” bar again and it will instantly take you back online and provide you with a list of your friends who are also online and available to chat.
Facebook will remember your settings, so you need only “Go Offline” once. You can log out, and back in again, and you will still be offline.
Now you can be logged into Facebook worry-free as chat requests and forced, awkward conversations with people you are not interested in talking to will be a thing of the past.