Question from Chanelle: I use Facebook a lot but I usually don’t pay much attention to the “Stories” they show at the top of the page.
But when I do see a Story that interests me it always seems to finish playing too quickly and move on to the next one before I’ve finished looking at the one I wanted to see.
Is there any way to pause a Story to give me more time to see it and read whatever writing might be on it?
I know there’s a ‘Pause’ button in the corner of the Stories but for some reason I can’t always see it.
Rick’s answer: Chanelle, there are actually several ways to pause a Facebook Story, but I’m going to give you the easiest method (in my humble opinion) for both the desktop Facebook site and the Facebook mobile app.
If you use Facebook in a web browser on a laptop or desktop computer:
While the Story is playing, move your mouse pointer over into the left-hand pane and leave it there. That will pause the Story until you move the mouse pointer back onto the Story image.
If you use the Facebook mobile app:
After the Story starts playing, simply tap and hold your finger on a blank section of the screen. Tapping either above the Story image or below it should pause the Story until you remove your finger from the screen.
Note: Depending on the device and/or the version of the Facebook app that’s installed on it, you might have to experiment a bit to find the best place to tap and hold in order to successfully pause the Story.
For example, on my Android devices I can tap virtually anywhere above or below the story to pause it, but on my iPhone there’s just one tiny area below the Story that seems to work.
That’s all there is to it, Chanelle. Now you know how to pause a Facebook Story when there’re no Pause button to click/tap.