Decluttering... Facebook!

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Started 10 months ago by themusiclivez
Latest reply from lottielot
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themusiclivez
Member

I know I have mentioned this on here in the past, but I wanted to bring it up again as I had restarted a Facebook acount about a year and half ago and just yesterday I deleted it again.

Have any of you deleted social networking sites? How did you feel after?

It sounds crazy, but I did it because it was just one more way I could be hassled. People started arguments with me on Facebook and I asked myself why I bothered with something that was just another "thing to keep up with" at the end of the day. A lot of the people I liked speaking with stopped using the site. They were still members, but never posted anything or responded to messages. So I thought, what is the point in keeping it? It feels good to delete it - like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. And if friends that I spoke to on FB don't communicate with me any other way, then were they really friends in the first place?

Posted 10 months ago #
Anita
Member

I've decluttered all other social networking sites in favour of Facebook.

I was in my teens when the social network craze was in full swing, so of course I HAD to have an Orkut profile. And a Friendster profile. And a hi5 profile. And a dozen others that I've since forgot the names of. The only one I skipped entirely was MySpace. All the others I joined as they became trendy and I stayed on because I seemed to have different sets of friends on each.

Finally, I joined Facebook in university, when it was just for university students (which I still refer to as the glory days of Facebook, when it was actually a useful networking tool rather than a bloated and over-apped social network). When it became quite clear this was to be THE social network, I deleted all my other accounts.

I'm keeping my Facebook account because for me, it's the easiest way to keep in touch with friends, and some of the activities I participate in have Facebook groups and events that don't show up anywhere else. My dance team has a group which is the main way for all of us to communicate. My photography studio is the same, we have a group for all members to chat (read: geek out) about photography related things. If I'm having friends over, it's much easier to send them all a Facebook invite than try to coordinate over email or phone. Sure, it's also rife with ads and apps and annoying invites and stupid people, but blocking and ignoring works :P

I'm kind of interested in Google+, if it does take off (some say it will give FB a run for its money; I'm sceptical), but otherwise I'll stick with Facebook.

Posted 10 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

@Anita- It sounds like Facebook is a useful tool for you. When all of your friends/groups use it, it makes perfect sense to keep it! I have never heard of Google+ - what is it? I am curious!

For me, Facebook started becoming ComplainBook, a place for everyone to rant and rave about trivial things and people started getting fired up and angry at each other, picking fights. Those who I actually enjoyed speaking with just kind of dropped off of the Facebook radar (maybe they were tired of the ranting and raving as well). I wish more of good my friends used it more often. I probably wouldn't have deleted it then!

Posted 10 months ago #
Ella
Member

I have only music research associates on my list of Facebook friends. Their posts are delightful and relevant to my research... except for one guy. He cluttered up my Facebook page with several posts every day about everything that his kids are doing. Yet he is a valuable associate, so I have blocked his posts from showing on my page but still kept him on my friends list.

I also had another non-research friend who posted frivolously every day. She's a very sweet woman, but her endless posts were driving me crazy so I told her I was limiting my Facebook friends to only music researchers. She was hurt, and I felt bad.
I should have just discreetly blocked her messages without saying a word about it.

Posted 10 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

@Ella - I would have done the same thing that you did. I had started deleting people off Facebook when they were flooding my newsfeed or when they just weren't someone I'd consider a friend any longer. I think I hurt some people, and I didn't mean to. But I wanted to use the site the way that worked best for me. I no longer have to worry about that anymore! It's a relief!

Posted 10 months ago #
Mimi
Member

i am thinking of deleting my profile. in terms of decluttering: do i need fb? no. do i love fb? no. does it make me smile? sometimes, most times it produces an evil grin because of the triviality of status updates.
in this spirit: "off"

Posted 10 months ago #
susanintexas
Member

I have a fairly large group of "friends" -- about 650, I think. I skim through it fairly quickly each day and probably don't spend more than 15 minutes on it -- maybe a bit more if there are interesting articles that people link to.

For me it serves a variety of purposes: linking up with old friends (I've moved a lot); keeping up with cousins (I moved from Philadelphia to go to college when I was 18, so I've lost touch a bit); some professional links, some activist links, some local links (especially to events) . . . it's overall useful to me.

There are a few people I need to block, though, -- as has been mentioned, I have a few people I know who post DOZENS of times a day with nonsense. I just scroll through it without reading, but it would be better to be rid of them.

Posted 10 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

@Mimi - Just keep in mind that if you decide to delete it, you need a special link to do so. Facebook just tells you how to "deactivate" your profile (which keeps everything in a hidden status, so if you change your mind, you can just reactivate it with all of your old information, friends, photos, etc. If you choose to officially delete it use the following link:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16929680703

@susanintexas - I wish I had the self-control to just check the site for a few minutes a day. That was probably part of my problem!

Posted 10 months ago #
Nithy
Member

I have a lot of people asking me if I'm on facebook. My reply is that I refuse to facebook. I explain that there are a lot of people that I simply never want to see or hear from ever again, and joining facebook would make it too easy for them to find me.

Posted 10 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

@Nithy - I agree with you. It is WAY too easy for people to find you on Facebook. There were times when I wouldn't leave comments on friend's pages because I saw the names of those who commented before me and I knew they would friend request me if they saw my name.

Posted 10 months ago #
Anita
Member

@themusiclivez - Google+ is Google's newest social/sharing network. It's still in the testing phases (they accepted a limited number of users, by invitation only, and are currently at capacity, but it's expected to go fully live and fully public in the next few weeks), but the reviews so far seem quite positive. The biggest emphasis is that you choose what to share and with whom, much more so than on Facebook. It's meant to give you more privacy and at the same time to facilitate communcation with the people you do want to share with.

A few links:
- Google+ site: https://plus.google.com/ (gives you the option of getting an email once it goes public)
- official "learn more" Google page: http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/
- one of many reviews: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/digital-culture/social-networking/review-google-plus-an-interesting-response-to-facebook-but-will-it-succeed/article2088692/

Looks promising, and it might be a good alternative for people who are sick of over-sharing (or having their friends over-share).

Posted 10 months ago #
Nithy
Member

I've been told that I should just crank up the privacy settings to maximum, but I've heard too many things about facebook and privacy, especially the fact that your privacy settings can be reset without your knowledge if they update things.

Posted 10 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

@Anita, thank you for the info! I appreciate it! :o)

@Nithy - You're right about the privacy settings being reset. It happened a bunch of times!

Posted 10 months ago #
Ella
Member

On Facebook, if you hover your cursor over the right margin of an unwanted post, you will be able to click a blue X, and then choose from the drop-down menu either to hide that one post or to hide all posts from that person without having to delete him or her from your friends list.

Posted 10 months ago #
camellia tree
Member

I've wanted to declutter facebook many times before, but never have. I always end up deciding to just cut out the parts (i.e., the people :) ) that I don't like. Actually, it's not so much that I don't like them, it's more that they just aren't in my life.

One of the things I like least about it is that it seems like everyone from my HS is friends with everyone else. Cute, but most of those people I wasn't close with to begin with, and I found that I didn't like the feeling that I was somehow still in HS. So I've started unfriending people who a) aren't in my life, and b) were never really in my life that much. I'd like to get to about 100 friends (I think I'm at around 125), which I think will represent the people who are most important to me.

I hide posts from too-frequent/annoying posters. There are a few people though who post the funniest stuff ever, and those alone make facebook worthwhile. Here's a post from my best friend, "I had to tell my daughter to roll the window down to flip some stupid driver off today. What is with people? It rains in WA!". Priceless.

Posted 10 months ago #
KeKeD
Member

Tried but disliked Twitter so I closed my account.

I do have a Facebook account that is only open to my family members. I don't post often but will check to see what is going on with everyone else as we don't phone much. I also "like" a few groups depending on current interests but will add and purge as the mood strikes.

I joined SparkPeople to lose weight and have had good success. But now that I am close to my goal weight, I'm not so motivated by the exercise/diet aspects and have been debating continuing my account. Right now I tend to use it more to keep in touch with the "friends" I've made.

Posted 10 months ago #
bandicoot
Member

o i had facebook and twitter and was starting to be online all day and night long....so 2.5 years ago, i simply went cold turkey and closed down both accounts.
now, i can hear myself think and i feel a lot calmer.
they were mental clutter of the absolute worst kind....for me.

i have had no urge to restart facebook, despite all kinds of encouragement, and blandishments.
tough.
i won't die if i miss something, after all!

google+ is a different kettle of fish though....i am watching and waiting.

Posted 10 months ago #
Mimi
Member

@themusiclivez: thank you for the link, i was looking for it! i deactivated my account 2 or 3 times and the problem is: if you "forget" about deactivating fb and log in again, it´s like before, everything is there, as if you didn´t do anthing. hmpf.

my "problem" is that i really USE facebook as a kind of bookmark-collection. i post links to my wall (just for me) and so i am able to store links like booksmarks and have access from everywhere, no matter what computer, browser or whatever i use. does anybody know a similar solution without facebook?

Posted 10 months ago #
morfydd
Member

Mimi, for that purpose I'd use Evernote. I'm trying to consolidate all my bits and pieces of data there, and it works really well for that.

Posted 10 months ago #
Jackthetiger
Member

Many family and friends live interstate and overseas, and FB gives me a chance to keep up with their lives and see their photos. I find it a quick and simple method of communication. I have very strict privacy controls and I set it up with a false name. Only my real friends and family can recognise me, so I only have about 70 contacts. I do not use any other site and I only check it when I check Unclutterer!

Posted 10 months ago #

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