pulling the plug on Facebook

[cutout]

Has Facebook gotten weird enough for any of you that you've deactivated your account?

Or have you ever felt like you were 'done' -- you caught up with every old friend you've ever made, saw all their family photos, realized you didn't want to stay in touch with any of them and felt weird about sharing information with them regarding your current life... I'm suddenly getting befriended by people who were total bullies and made my life hell back in school. I'm morbidly curious to see what's become of everyone, but also aware how artificial and banal and it is.

I know I'm not saying anything new here. Social networking just never fails to be weird to me. It's also weird to know that kids now in middle school will never know of life without it.

[AllisonLeGnome]

I find Facebook really useful in college, where it's everyone's day-to-day method of communication and also the most efficient way to keep up with friends from home, but I can definitely understand getting frustrated with it in a different situation.

[yesno]

Couple months ago. I think it's annoying.

[cutout]

I find Facebook really useful in college, where it's everyone's day-to-day method of communication

Yeah, I should've pointed out for context -- I'm 33yo and only joined Facebook this year. I live in a small town where I see my current friends face-to-face constantly, thus FB isn't as useful. I'm mainly still there because old high school people keep joining and I can't look away. My hometown was pop. 5,000 and I haven't returned since high school. The nostalgia/novelty is interesting and there are good memories - but certain people really bring back very bad memories, like whiplash. I no longer want to post links and updates, knowing they're reading.

[Martin]

I think it's great. I have friends all over the world, and it's an easy way to keep in touch with people. Also, I changed my last name a couple of years ago, and thus I don't get a lot of friend requests from old school mates who I don't wanna keep in touch with these days anyway. Which is good.

[erechoveraker]

I've finally started really liking Facebook lately, so much so I am ready to leave Myspace. It's a grown-up social networking site, just in time for our new grown-up President. FOT friendly in other words, get with the program kids.

[Regular Joe]

I feel the same way about facebook and the like as I would about everyone in the world suddenly developing telepathic abilities. It'd be great at first, but eventually it would spell our outright dissolution as a society. If we all knew enough despicable things about each other, it would be enough make everyone want to start a war!

Of course, as a promotional tool it's great, but if you have nothing to promote and aren't involved with a group that depends on social networking to operate (school, work, criminal organization, etc.), seriously, what are you doing there? I truly believe 95% of all social networking accounts could be permanently deleted with absolutely no repercussions to the world at large. If you need to know what I'm having for lunch, pick up the phone. I'll tell you. If you don't have my phone number, why the hell do you want to know that?! Why the hell do you want to know that, even if you DO have my number? Will you stop calling me and asking me what I'm having for lunch already? I really never should have given you my number. Jesus.

PS: No offense to those of you who like it. I'm a crank! Go in peace and network your hearts out. I'll be here training carrier pigeons to mail things for me.

[erechoveraker]

Erech Overaker became a fan of Regular Joe's crankiness.

[Gilly]

I love Facebook because I hate the telephone. There are too many special people I lost contact with and Facebook has been amazing at rekindling those relationship not just by keeping up with each other by status updates but by keeping that little bit of contact so we can meet once a year or so. If Facebook wasn't there I think those meet ups wouldn't happen. Of course, the argument is if you need something like Facebook to meet up the relationship isn't that great anyway, but for me it works. Life is busy, and you lose touch with people you really love and I'm glad that Facebook has made it possible to at least keep some connection.

A lot of people I friend I don't talk to for more than a 15 minute catch up but I love those 15 minutes.

[Martin]

Yeah, Gilly said it better.

Also, Facebook is the first social networking site I've used outside of message boards like this one.

[masterofsparks]

I've never signed up for Facebook but I've been thinking about it lately because some family members that I only see a couple of times a year are on there and it might be a good way to keep up because, like Gilly, I hate talking on the phone.

I used to have a MySpace account but deleted it a few months ago. I initially signed up as a way to keep up with my favorite bands, who either don't have a "regular" website or never update it, but I soon realized that if they don't update their regular website, they're not going to update their MySpace page either, and all of the friend requests from girls in bikinis with only 1 friend started to get irritating.

[crumbum]

I like Facebook just fine, but I never update my status or do much beyond arrange social events and respond to invitations. My personal correspondance is still all by email. No one is forcing you to include any real personal info on your Facebook account beyond your area of residence, your age and your name -- if you want it to be a simple tool for managing your real-world social life, and not a whole other life of its own, it's not too hard to keep it as such.

Then again, I never had a Myspace account or Friendster either, so I don't think I'm naturally inclined toward social networking overload.

[senorcorazon]

I was tempted to open an account after having gone through the same crap with Friendster and MySpace, but I quickly realized that when I did open a Facebook account, within 5 minutes I had requests from people in high school that I didn't like and didn't want to know at all. It's like Gmail chat - I'm always invisible, and the people who really know me know what that means.

I think the trick is what Tom and PFT were saying - lean and mean. Only the people who would know that "I want to kill everyone" doesn't really mean that. That being said, I already keep in touch with those 15 people enough.

Also, the status updates? Inside jokes broadcasted to everyone. And mostly terrible.

[Kim Kelly]

If it weren't for Facebook, we wouldn't have the H-Man's status updates to cool down The Kid.

[samir]

If it weren't for Facebook, I wouldn't know first-hand about Kim Kelly's daily shenanigans.