Editorial: Why I Left Facebook After 7 Years, But Was Forced Back In

I have 3-4 friends who I don't meet on regular basis yet we call up each other once a while to catchup I haven't seen any fb people do that.

Just decrapify your FB so you would actually go there for relevant news.

I really don't miss fakebook. I got tired of all the bullshit. I don't brag about my life and I'm not good at lying about my life, so fakebook was not a good fit for me. Out of the 100 or so "friends" I did have, I would say only 5 of them really meant something to me. It was easy for me to ditch fakebook. Besides, I really don't like being tracked and labeled over the entire internet according to my facebook settings and preferences.

I resisted getting a Facebook for a very long time, and was finally talked into it about 3 years ago by a girl. (Actually same reason I got a MySpace back in the day...).
But it was the easiest way to talk to her as I didn't have texting on my phone and she has a out of state cell phone number.

Now I don't check it very often. Tops once a day really quick after work. For the most part I don't find it very annoying, but my "Friends" as only people I know IRL (about 50 people).
For the most part I like FB. It lets me keep in tough with friends and family that live in other states.
I think for now I will keep it just for that reason.

Being a musician, having a facebook account really helps me get the word out to friends about upcoming shows for them to attend, and it also helps out a lot with connecting with new musicians inan area that I may be visiting for possible future venues.

Don't quote me on this but I think it may be possible to have those same friends online >_>

I have a facebook account, although I don't trust some of the opt-in feature it maintains to "make the world more open and connected"; Timeline, in particular. And I log in for only so much time, it becomes tedious on the time being.

(I wish I could Like the following comments above on TechSpot's facebook, rather than being impatient to get a Dislike button!)

First off if Facebook is your main media outlet for information you need to reassess things. I can know about things before someone on Facebook does, very easily in fact.

Now, what's this about Facebook not going anywhere? All things come to an end in the virtual world. Facebook is yet another rehash of other social sites. Almost everyone uses Facebook? That's the funniest things I've read this week. 0.9 billion use Facebook. There are 7 billion in the world. Hardly "almost everyone.

Bravo Julio! I offer one and all a recommendation to read "The Digital Divide" by Mark Bauerlein in which there is at least one chapter directly related to this article:
'Virtual Friendship and the new Narcissim'. Another that is somewhat shocking is 'Is Google Making us Stupid?' The book cited is worth your time if the impact of three decades of the Internet are of interest to you.

I'm a little curious to know what the average age of the commenters here are. I'm not sure if that matters a whole bunch, but it's certainly a factor to consider.

I'm 21 now, and I've spent far too much of my life online since the age of 12. I've had four or five different groups of friends over the course of those years, and I don't exactly want to toss them all to the wayside every time we're not able to physically meet up (which gets hard when we're spread across the country).

By and large, my preferred communication is instant messaging-- but not everyone uses that. What if I want to address multiple people and have them all comment? Or I found a cool thing and I want to show it off?

I don't use facebook for the games and I rarely use it for the apps. I use it as a quick and easy way to let people know what's going on with my life. Some people don't like that, sure. But I do, and obviously, so do most of my friends.

It's easy to write off facebook as an intrusive and crapp-riddled site; but it's not hard to use it exactly as intended-- a social network. And that's why I'd never give it up.

I do have a Facebook account with a few hundred friends. I do very little with reading posts or replying to them. If someone sends me a friend request and I even vaguely remember who they are I'll accept. I'm not on it for the keeping in touch part, or even the sharing my daily life activity. I just like some of the games they have to offer. If those games ever go offline (standalone) I could more then live without logging into Facebook. Although I don't think I could delete my account because I also have several other things linked to Facebook. Now that I think about it I post more on TechSpot or other specially forums then I ever have on Facebook.

IMO, maturity, not age is THE factor :grin:

I nuked my account mid July, best thing I ever did. Don't miss it, not in the least bit. I feel facebook is a social d-evolution, it's almost just an extension to the text message epidemic. The use of verbal communication is decreasing fast, and its effect will span a whole generation. It's already pretty bad when you meet someone and instead of getting a phone number they tell you to "Add me on Facebook" But it's not just people, now it's every business under the sun that has to put the little symbol on their card or menu or whatever. I can remember the early days, before it became a source of commercial advertisement, when it was really about the people you know. Now it bothers me to the point where I wish it was gone completely, the world would be a better place without facebook, because at the end of the day it does nothing you can't do with a phone call.

Forgot to add one more thing, since I've left I noticed people who rely on it extensively have not contacted me since, and only my close friends actually pointed out that I wasn't on anymore.

Zuck, is that you? Or just another insecure non-person who has to justify his addiction through pitiful "I'm so cool" posturing? Oh wait..there's no difference.

@Jim$ter.

There is a whole world out there that doesn't have anything thing to do with fakebook. It's cool that you are so connected, but there are other ways in this digital world to stay connected to friends and get news and information without having facebook know every move you make. I personally have found that if a site requires me to use a facebook interface, than I probably don't need to use that site. Isolation? Hermit? Not really, I just figure facebook doesn't need to know anymore info about me than they already have. Who really needs hundreds if not thousands of "friends" anyway? It's just another excuse to hoard so called "friends". So, before you make it sound like people that aren't on facebook are total losers, It is just a choice of how much of your life you intend to share or exploit. Some prefer not to do either. That is me.

So very true. Just sometimes wish people would realize this.

I closed my account once. A year later, I went back on and entered my old username/password. FB popped up with a question asking if I wanted to reactivate my old account. I said yes and every picture and my old friends list was still intact as if I had never left, as were all of my old posts. Closing an account does not truly delete the account.

Before I read the article all I could think of was "How can you be forced back in?" Then I remembered that new Spotify members can only signup with Facebook. That is the problem the person is trying to show people. He had a Spotify account that he was locked out from after getting rid of his facebook. If he could use his email for Spotify he could still log in and change his email address if he changed email accounts.

To me, Facebook is my contacts book since it's easier to keep in touch with my friends and family there rather than keeping their addresses somewhere else and using the email instead.

Additionally, it's my "public diary" (all my privacy settings are set to "friends only"). Whatever I post on my timeline is mostly for myself to commemorate an event and to share it with my buddies who I trust.

Everyone on my friends list is someone who I have close relationships with. I have no virtual friends there, no acquintanances as I don't have an urge to add everyone I've ever known there.

I only add people who I don't have a problem with sharing my personal stuff.

I agree with the article. nothing worse than seeing a bunch of bible verses in post after post. Its like dropping a prayer smack dab in the middle of a good time.