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So Long Facebook
Filed under: General | Tags: digital presence, facebook, Social Media (3), uncluttering (2) | February 19th, 2010
Tonight I took a step I’ve been considering for some time. I completely deleted my Facebook account.
Over the last year I’ve been using Facebook less, and less, and each time I logged into the site there would be more clutter to deal with. The constant application recommendations that I had no interest in, and the numerous pointless group invites that I spent about ten minutes clicking “ignore” to, were the straw that broke the metophorical camel’s back.
The site had one thing going for it, in my opinion, in that it let me reconnect with a few people I haven’t seen in a very long time. For those people I’ve taken whatever contact info I could get from the site, and I’ll email/call/IM them at some point soon. Other than that small plus point, Facebook had become something I no longer wanted to spend any time engaging with. I’m going through somehing of a digital presence reduction at the moment, that I’ll talk about in a later post in more detail, and Facebook become the first victim of that process.
I know a few social media people who will think I’m crazy for deleting my account, especially with what I have planned for my year, and to a certain extent I agree with that. However, the benefits that I could potentially receive from my account were far outweighed by the overall distaste I had developed for the service.
In the coming months I may change my position and create a new account, though I find that permise highly doubtful. I’m glad it’s gone. It’s the first step in a much more streamlined and focused online existence, and without doubt it will be the most satisfying account to delete.
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AP | February 19th, 2010 @ 11:11 pm
i can see where you’re coming from, i’ll still continue to use facebook, twitter, etc on a regular basis but i’ve started to see a shift in its use. it almost feels like it’s being used less and less by my mates, and when it is, its rubbish games or twitter in disguise. there seem less content, especially with the continue redesigns, the photos section now seems harder to navigate, and its all about the feed. even deleting friends has become easier.
i know you’re only one person, but is this the decline of facebook? and where’s the next big thing to take it’s place…
Chris Hamilton | February 19th, 2010 @ 11:37 pm
Hey Andy,
I’m still going to use Twitter because, for me, it still has a lot of value. Facebook just wanted to be too many things and, in my opinion, stopped doing any of those things well. I got tired dealing with all of the rubbish that came with using the site. You’re right that it’s all about the feed these days, and it has been since they bought FriendFeed.
I doubt it’s the decline of Facebook though, at least not in any major kind of way. It has changed so much in the last year that I can see the people that have been using it for a long time giving up on it. I have a feeling LinkedIn might be to Facebook, what it was to MySpace, for those people. In that it’s a more grown up, professional, site just like facebook used to be in the beginning. I could be completely wrong about that though.
Rich | February 20th, 2010 @ 10:07 am
Hi chris,
i’ve gone the other way, I’ve deleted my Twitter account. However the crap and constant redesigns is begining to bug me on Facebook. I had a clear out of arround 300 ‘friends’ on Facebook a couple of months ago and now I’ve done that nothing interesting seems to happen on there. I dont interact with it, it’s more a people watching thing. However without anyone to people watch it’s not worth having!
Chris Hamilton | February 22nd, 2010 @ 9:59 am
Hey Rich,
That was one of the reasons behind my decision to delete my account; I found I was never interacting with it. It just sat there, gathering game requests, and invites to groups. It let me see what a section of my friends that I don’t see that often anymore were up to, but other than that it became something of a pointless tool for me.
Rich | February 22nd, 2010 @ 1:00 pm
Yea, im fortunate that ive blocked every app/game thing that ive been invited to. So i dont have that issue, But its just really boring now and a complete waste of time!
Rich
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