OK, so here's the latest one doing the rounds on Facebook. The above photo is being shared in a desperate attempt, it seems, to persuade people NOT to send 'game requests'.
No, it's not a hoax, or spam; but sharing this is highly unlikely to make the difference you desire. You can do a couple of simple things that will be much more effective.
First, don't assume that your friends are inviting you individually to share these games and will therefore be horribly offended if you don't. For the most part, they will be going out as a block invite to all friends - and as such, a refusal will not (in this case) offend, as the inviter is unlikely to even notice.
Secondly, like most other things on Facebook, you can 'block' them. At first this may seem tiresome. However, take it from me: I block almost every invitation I receive, with the result that I now receive virtually no invitations at all. Farmville, Bejewelled Blitz, Candy Crush Saga... in fact, when I look at the list, I can see that I've been a boring old fart about quite a lot of them (about 80, at the last count). Most of them come up time and time again, so once you've blocked it - you don't see it again. Easy.
So how to block? Two ways.
First, when you receive an invitation, don't simply dismiss it.
- Click on the Games link under Apps (left hand toolbar)
- Click on Requests (ditto)
- Click on the drop-down arrow top right of the offending request
- You're given a choice to block all invites from that person, or to block the app itself
- Choose and click
Easy.
Secondly: take the initiative.
- Click on the small 'cog' icon at the top right of the page
- Click on Settings
- Click on Blocking (on the left)
- Scroll down to Block Apps
- Type the name of the app you want to block
- Press the Enter key
- Your chosen blocked app will appear in (guess what) your list of blocked apps
Job done.
So what's wrong with the image above? Well, nothing really; except that in many cases your friends won't even be particularly aware that you're being included in their mass mailings, and as such it's unlikely to affect their decision-making processes (!).
Oh, and one more thing. Click on the photo itself when you see it shared on Facebook, and you'll see it's been 'shared' over 100,000 times. Maybe I'm being cynical, but that's an awful lot of high-ranking activity for the page that first published it. And we know about like-whores, don't we? Don't we?!!
