A social networking system notifies its users of different events and actions taking place inside the social networking system. To present notifications that are most likely to be of interest to the user, the social networking system observes the interactions of the user with notifications presented to the user and suggests an option to opt-out of notifications associated with a source based on the observed interactions. The option to opt-out of notifications associated with the source may be presented if the users interactions with the notifications presented are below a threshold. Notifications associated with a social group are presented to the user based on factors describing the group and the relation between the user and other users of the social group, for example, seniority of the user, size of the group, and the rate at which user actions associated with the group are received.