Goodbye, Facebook

I deactivated my Facebook account today. I am done with it.

When our close friends Amanda and Anderson left for Dubai in mid-August, I started a Facebook account to keep in touch with them and to see pictures they posted as well as share pictures with them. I wasn’t interested in adding a huge number of people to my friends list, and I populated it with close friends, family and other relatives. I adjusted my privacy settings so that people could not search for me and therefore could not send me requests to add me to their friends list. In other words, I was in total control of who I was in contact with. Until about a week ago…

Facebook changed some privacy settings which required me verify my settings. A couple hours later, I got a request to be on someone’s friends list. I was shocked. This is the first time something like that had happened and I was not happy. I reluctantly accepted the request. I went back into the privacy settings and noticed that there was no option to stop ‘friends of friends’ from searching for me and sending requests. What. The. Hell. I left it alone and for the past week, all had been well. Earlier today, I received yet another request to be on someone’s friends list.

I deactivated my account about five minutes later.

I can’t say I’m really upset. Facebook always seemed like more of a chore than anything. I’ll quickly sum up a few of the things I don’t like about Facebook:

• Privacy settings that change randomly (it would appear they almost try to ‘trick’ users into revealing more).
• New Feed vs. Live Feed – Live Feed always had more in it and News Feed only contained a fraction of content – what good is that?
• Stupid game requests. No, I do not wish to participate in a pillow fight or raising farm animals.
• Confusing layout. You’ve got News, Photos, Video etc. as well your main friends stream (which seems to include everything). Then you’ve got your ‘wall’ and friends have their ‘walls’ which have more content.
• Too much happening. Let’s see, I’ve got news feed, chat bar, requests to participate in games and other stuff, this area that suggests other people to add (repeatedly!) and right below it are some people who I haven’t ‘connected’ with in a while. There are lots of other little things around the screen to click as well.
• Deactivation, not deletion: Facebook won’t let you delete your account on your own; just deactivate it just in case, you know, you ever want to come back. Idiots.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for everyone who uses Facebook and has a great time with it. For me, up until a week ago, I was putting up with all of the annoying crap it threw at me for the sake of  keeping in touch with the 40 or so people I chose to be in contact with.

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