So I’ve deactivated my Facebook profile. The 339 people who included me in their networks of friends may or may not have noticed that I’ve simply vanished. Gone.
And it’s wonderful. I thought I’d be devastated, as though a limb had suddenly been removed, but I feel liberated. A new person. Perhaps this is how smokers feel after they kick the habit.
No more pressure to write entertaining status updates. No more compulsive changing of profile pictures. No more pointless wading through pointless revelations, no more requests, no more growing gifts or hatching eggs. No more so-and-so has completed “which Crayola colour are you” or “Which Disney princess are you” or “What’s your spirit name?”
No more reflexive checking every 30 seconds to see whether there was anything new, the digital equivalent of the panther pacing in a concrete cage.
No more opening up my life to the purview of strangers. Even if Facebook was a way to back up my most important photos, there were too many of them there, too many private details, too many aspects of my life that should not have been open to semi-public consumption. My brother in the UK complained that I was addicted, that it was unhealthy. I read too many articles on the dangers of social networking, how there are certain details one should not share, how Facebook owns the rights to any photo you upload there.
I tried pruning my friends list, cutting out photos, removing personal details. In the end, it was much easier to go cold turkey.
There are disadvantages to quitting Facebook. It was my primary networking tool, and I met and maintained connections with many useful contacts through it. I tracked activity on it and punted its inclusion in my communication strategies. It offered a revolutionary way to stay in touch with friends, and it was a lifeline when I was isolated and alone in Australia.
Twitter is useful, but it’s not quite the same. How I’ll market my next book without Facebook is going to be something of a challenge, and I may well decide that I need some kind of presence there, along with the other 1.7 million South Africans who were registered Facebook users as of May 2009.
It’s possible to reactivate any account that has been deactivated, so there’s always that option. But I think that if I ever do venture onto Facebook again, I will reduce my presence there dramatically. I’ll be the author of a book I want to promote, a contact for people who know me personally and who want to stay in touch, perhaps a potential business associate, though I am not sure it makes sense to mix one’s business and personal life.
The one thing I cannot do is expose my private life the way I did before. One photo, one favourite movie, and it’s a slippery slope from there. I am a Facebook addict, and I don’t know if I can ever go back.
I see that some folk, Koos Kombuis for example, only have a fan page, which is updated with his upcoming events : shows, appearances, etc. There’s no personal stuff, only promotional info, and no back and forth communication. It’s networking without the trivia. It could work very well for you
Why then, does this read like a Facebook post?
Facebook’s all about discipline.
I only log on to talk to very specific people, about very specific things…
Sarah, I did the same thing and found it equally liberating. My reasons for going were a) that it gauled me to have ‘real’ friends who live close by suddenly communicating only on FB and b) the intrusive, boring, juvenile garbage of Disney names, Crayola colours, etc. The only escape appeared to be to run away and I rarely regret it.
Now that makes sense.
Maybe I am just not that interesting
But Facebook has never appealed that much to me. I have in fact not logged on to my account for about a year now. I have thought about this and why I should have so little interest, and I think it’s because I just don’t care that much about what my friends and acquaintances are getting up to. I suppose I am to a degree anti-social. People at a cocktail party would not be avoiding me as I would not be there in the first place. I wonder if other anti-social people also have little need for facebook?
I use FB only as a communication tool and photo archive for my diasporic family and friends. I dont poke, twitter or send Jagerbombers and it works just fine at that level. I especially dont get involved when someone wails “I’m so bored”
Oh Sarah!!! When I introduced you to FB – I didn’t think you would get as addicted to it as you seemed to be!!! FB is like the web itself as ‘ignorable’ as you want it to be… Now I will never know how you feel about non-BMW drivers etc etc… !!
I did the same a few months back…for the same reasons. 100 people knew too much about me…So I went over to Twitter where I can be anonymous.
I also don’t spend as much time on Twitter..less clutter.
The title sounded like a smoker weening himself / herself off the habit. Facebook can do that to some folks sometimes, especially if there is nothing else going on in one’s life. Habits and indulgences like alcohol, sex, internet gaming, etc, tend to take over the little opportune voids in our daily schedules, if not our lives in general.
However, WE are to blame, NOT the habits themselves. Facebook is what you make it, it itself doesn’t make anyone do anything.
So, I commend you, at least for not making sweeping statements from just your own unique Facebook experience. Also, it’s good to see that you are keeping an open mind to be back again for whatever reason. It’s always nice to take yourself out of any habit every now and then, to regain your centre, if the said activity feels as if it’s taking over the rest of your life. Hopefully you’ll get more socially involved in real life, so that you don’t seek the internet or other technological applications to substitute for human interactions.
I’m planning to do the same, but I won’t leave Facebook. It’s better than email. I actually keep my telephone directory there as all my contacts have cell numbers and land lines loaded on my page. I have also found it much faster to pass important messages to most of my friends there, when I have favors to request, etc.
To each his own, I guess.
How do you give your full private or semi private details online? I use it to communicate with freinds and family and reject anything else.
Bloody moany mother grundies. Use it, don’t use it but don’t judge. urgh. move with the times people. nobody is interesting, we are all equal. FB and other social networking sites prove that. the great equaliser.
I don’t think I could ever have the guts to deactivate my account – they call it FOMO (fear of missing out!). I often wonder what we did before Facebook, which has only been around for the last couple of years. I still managed to keep in contact with friends and maintain an active social life… However, it has been great coming across old friends from school on Facebook who I’ve lost touch with.
I started out spending way too much time on FB, that has gradually changed to the point where I now spend very little time on it. The Novelty I guess has worn off. Maybe I take a trip over there quickly and remove my profile too.
Facebook for me was just a wonderful tool to make contact with old buddies and connect with people. Now I have tracked them all down except one. Evan Dollar, are you out there somewhere?I will use it to promote the publication of Cracking China. But other than that for me it is a waste of time. Mind you Though Leadership has helped me make connect with really great people, David Bullard, Sarah, Llewellyn Kriel and Bert Olivier, amongst others.
Only noticed the disappearance today. I kinda like the intrusive nature of facebook. It gives my sis and I something to chat about on that odd trip to Welkom. I doubt anyone expected the facebook to grow into the current animal it is (like the internet, it was only intended for varsities etc) but it is quite an interesting gem of web 2.0. Apart from personal details being out there, there is that odd mishap of posting something dodge on a buddy’s wall (it was a status comment about being on Oprah and high 5ing milfs) and then having another buddy’s mom posting a comment on that status. Glad my folks have only recently discovered email, the joys of being heavily pigmented.
Apparently twitter has too much hype at the moment according to Gartner and I’ve only picked up on bad reviews about its usefulness, but I’ll wait and see before becoming a tweeter or is twitterer.
Easily the biggest waste of time humans have devised. As a contact medium – great. Anything else – pathetic.