Here’s one of the more obscure annoyances of living in the digital age: nosy applications often try to mess with my calendar.
That’s a big problem for me, since I use my calendar to keep myself organized. Earlier this week, I decided to check whether I had anything planned this weekend – imagine my surprise when I saw a little dot (indicating a planned event) over every single date on my calendar.
Facebook had somehow accessed my iPhone’s calendar and added a notification for every friend’s birthday. I also had event invites from every local band in my area, and I couldn’t find anything that I actually had planned.
Fortunately, it’s an easy problem to fix, and no, you don’t have to delete your Facebook app. Here’s a quick guide to disabling Facebook event notifications on your iPhone’s calendar.
Open the Facebook Application. Hit the three-line icon for “more” in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Scroll down to Settings. Don’t bother with the “Events” menu, it doesn’t affect your phone. The “Settings” option is towards the bottom of the scroll menu.
Scroll to “Notifications.” Look under the small menu with “How You Get Notifications” for “Mobile Push.”
This is where you control all of your push notifications – by un-checking these boxes, you can prevent Facebook from bothering you. However, you might not want to disable everything, especially if you like notifications when a friend messages you or tags you.
Un-Check the Relevant Boxes. To protect your calendar, just un-check “Events” and “Birthday Reminder.” You can now exit the application.
So, why does this happen in the first place? It’s tough to say, but there might be some bug that checks that box for certain users. That’s pure speculation on my part, based on how Facebook event notifications suddenly showed up on my calendar without any warning – I hadn’t even used the Facebook app for several days when it happened. It wasn’t a big deal after I figured out the fix, and the app hasn’t posted to my calendar since I changed the mobile push settings.
The bigger issue is that Facebook buries this setting under a bunch of menus, so casual users might have trouble figuring out how to reclaim their iPhone calendars from Facebook’s clutches. I hope this tutorial makes the process a little easier for those people.
Does your non-iPhone smartphone put Facebook events on its calendar? Post your comments and tips below.
