Stop the press....I Deleted Facebook

[failed_butchery]

Last week my wife and I deleted our facebook accounts. Man, you wouldn't believe the reaction I got from family and friends. I don't have a phone, and I'm deployed right now, but my wife has been receiving calls from family and friends, of why the hell we would delete our accounts. Apparently people think if you delete your facebook, you have either:

1. Gone completely nuts

2. Fell of the face of the earth

3. You don't want to be contacted

These concerned friends of mine were very aggravated that I deleted my facebook. The funny thing is, I haven't talked to half of them on facebook in like half a year...let alone calling me. (when they had the chance) I think facebook is a way to keep tabs on someone without interacting with them. This opinion I hold is the reason I got off last week. Another reason is to see exactly how people would react. I guess its a social experiment. Apparently I come off of as an antisocial human being.

Honestly me getting off of facebook is a pretty invigorating experience. I think people should take a "30 day challenge" of staying off facebook.

[Frontier Guy]

Kudos to you. I'm a face-to-face guy as much as possible, or at least a one-on-one in the case of email.

Related ... today I was in the break room at work with about a dozen other folks. In years past the room would be filled with chatter, laughter, and such.

Today ... the only sound was the overhead fan. Everyone was so engrossed in their smartphones checking FaceBook, playing Farmville or Solitaire or Angry Birds ... they had no time (and apparently no interest) in real social interaction.

I don't carry a phone so I went out for a walk because it was just sad being in a room which had no energy.

[justtom]

Never opened a facebook,myspace,twitter account in my name could not be bothered if where close then you have my numbers and my address and you will know all the details I want to share with you.But I did have one under a false name to keep tabs on someone for leagal reasons and they accepted my friend request like they new me and put there whole life out there and made my case very easy

[Sir Harry]

Ever since joining this forum, my time on Facebook has been less and less....FWIW, I have two Facebook pages one for close friends and one for "generic" friends. It's nice to share accomplishments and birthday greetings and even an occasional "words of wisdom" post, but to put every waking detail of your life out there is just ridiculous. One thing that I like about SBG. You can't defriend people, but you can block them if they're annoying...That said, I applaud you and your wife for closing your accounts if Facebook became that meaningless to you. I may take a "30-day Facebookless challenge" myself!

[tomgallagher]

Last week my wife and I deleted our facebook accounts. Man, you wouldn't believe the reaction I got from family and friends. I don't have a phone, and I'm deployed right now, but my wife has been receiving calls from family and friends, of why the hell we would delete our accounts. Apparently people think if you delete your facebook, you have either:

1. Gone completely nuts

2. Fell of the face of the earth

3. You don't want to be contacted

These concerned friends of mine were very aggravated that I deleted my facebook. The funny thing is, I haven't talked to half of them on facebook in like half a year...let alone calling me. (when they had the chance) I think facebook is a way to keep tabs on someone without interacting with them. This opinion I hold is the reason I got off last week. Another reason is to see exactly how people would react. I guess its a social experiment. Apparently I come off of as an antisocial human being.

Honestly me getting off of facebook is a pretty invigorating experience. I think people should take a "30 day challenge" of staying off facebook

Well done. BTW, I like your signature.

[-Doug-]

I recently went on a few weekend camping trips and one week long camping trip. During those times I had limited to no access to the Internet. I was surprised that I didn't miss FB much. I've been on there less and less lately and enjoying it.

On a related note, I have been into Google+ more lately. It is more of an information sharing community than a vomiting about every little thing going on in your day sort of thing that FB is IMHO.

[Natedawg]

I barely check mine anymore. Nobody ever reacts when I post anything on there, anyway. Probably end up deleting it completely. 

[JasonR]

I deactivated my account for several months. I reactivated it, logged in once, and I haven't logged in in 30 days. I don't miss it ONE bit. I also deleted my Myspace account when it was popular.

For one...it can be a HUGE time suck. And two...I have enough going on with my friends that I actually hang out with in real life, I don't really need to see what my hundred other "friends" (IE acquaintances) are up to.

However, I do like and enjoy Instagram. I like photography, and it's such a simple app and you can see everything that happened in the last day in about 2 minutes.

[failed_butchery]

never heard of Instagram, sounds compelling

[Sir Harry]

I was thinking of starting a separate thread on this...but since this post was going to be essentially similar to what the OP posted, I thought I would share.....I checked my Facebook today just for curiosity and found two friend requests from people whom I haven't seen in more than two decades! I accepted them right away. I disabled the feature that shows who unfriended you because I was tired of losing sleep over people who didn't want to be friends. I used to hate being defriended by people whom I thought I was close with, but my younger brother put it in a better perspective: Are you going to worry about 10 or 15 people who defriended you, or are you going to concentrate on the people who still want to be your friend? That did it for me, I just decided that I wouldn't even bother checking the number of friends, I decided to focus my energy on places I can make a difference (hopefully) and SBG has been a great source of enjoyment where I don't have to worry about the drama of Facebook.....That said, I enjoy my friendships here and Facebook has become secondary....but I will still keep it because I do value my (remaining) friends.......FWIW, as a 40-year-old man, I shouldn't even be entertaining some of the stuff that goes on Facebook.

[leighmundo40]

I like Facebook, for me it's a great way of keeping up with friends in other countries and in different parts of the country. Ive met all my Facebook friends and dont accept friends with anyone I don't know.

Saying that, it can get really addictive and woah-betide should my friend count go down, I freak out until I can work out who has buggered off!

Dont have the internet on my phone, so I only access it via the laptop.

[tomgallagher]

Facebook is losing money hand over fist ever since they went public.

[Hingatao]

I've been on Facebook for about 3 years but, like with sirharry, it's become secondary to SBG. I just feel I've got more in common with my friends here than on Facebook even though I don't know any of you personally. The big advantage to Facebook is that it's let me reconnect with friends from high school that I haven't seen since graduation.

[mrzed]

I dumped facebook a few months ago. I got tired of their all to frequent changes to the page, layout, menu locations, and such.  Gave up trying to re-learn facebook every two weeks. I told them why I was leaving.

[Hingatao]

Those changes are a big reason why I'm trying to wean myself away from it.