I briefly mentioned in my last post how I’ve blocked Facebook from my browser, but I’ve been mulling over this idea of deleting my profile since maybe last year. I’m not some tinfoil-hat-wearing privacy wacko — I’ve been blogging for about ten years, and have been socializing on the internet before “social networking” was even coined. But the continuing erosion of privacy on Facebook concerns me, and it’s clearly a concern for a lot of people.
When MySpace was just on the verge of exploding, I remember once saying, “What’s the point of joining a social networking site if you’re going to make your profile private?” I’m inclined to say that social networking was different back then — we used it to make connections with attractive people, to feel closer to artists we liked, and to show off how popular we were trying to be. But I wasn’t a mom back then, nor was my own mom up on this social networking thing. Now the idea of having a public profile, of having all of my information available for viewing, just makes me feel icky. Having random people from my past add my mom as their Facebook friend just makes me feel ickier (and yes, this has happened).
And interestingly, I remember the big pull to Facebook from Myspace was that it was much easier to keep your profile private, and that even the culture of Facebook seemed to be more private. Clearly not the case anymore. At this point, with all the privacy erosions, I assume anything I do while logged into Facebook is being recorded on the Facebook servers, whether or not I’ve elected to share it on my wall. And I can only imagine what Facebook is cooking up for the future.
I’m not an idiot. While I’ve deleted almost everything on my profile and I’ve never used Facebook Connect to log into any other site besides Facebook, I’ve had personal information on my profile at varying points during my membership (dating back to ’05, long before they’d turned evil) so I’m assuming that what was once there before will be on the books forever. I know deleting myself from Facebook now will not delete my data from its history, but it’ll at least keep my data from being continually fed to Facebook, with or without my knowledge.
But I’m getting beside my own point here. Privacy is part of why I want to leave, but not the only reason. Facebook has mostly just added a bunch of useless junk to my life. I’m going through a lot of changes right now and am starting to understand how important it is — and how much happier it makes me — to have an uncluttered mind. Aside from the Firefox metrics, I don’t really have any conclusive data on how much junk Facebook has added, but when I imagine how much time my eyes have spent skimming the status updates of people I barely know, how much time I’ve spent waiting for the iPhone app or website to load, how much time I’ve spent stalking people I don’t even like, and how much space all of these useless photos and statuses and Farmville updates are taking in my brain… it’s no wonder I still can’t get a decent night’s sleep and can’t write anything longer than a blog post these days.
I reiterate: Facebook is the one network my entire family is on, and is therefore the easiest and quickest way to get in touch, disseminate info, and share photos with them. Being that we’re about to move 3,000 miles away, I feel like the ability to do this is clutch. Of course, this is the case for a lot of people, and Facebook knows that and that’s how they get you. But I’ve lived in Cali far from my family before, long before any of them were on Facebook, and I don’t particularly feel that Facebook has done much for improving my relationships with them.
In fact, while over half of the people on my Facebook list are people I haven’t seen in years and couldn’t really give a fuck about, being on FB and periodically getting caught up in oversharing has usually only caused drama between me and people I’m actually close to. My cousins and I have gotten into many heated (and stupid) fights on Facebook over things we wouldn’t have even bothered to say to each other’s faces. Other friends get salty when they “like” or comment on all of my status updates and I always don’t return the favor. My mom would even scold me on things Huz and I would write in our status updates (um, until we blocked her from viewing our walls). People I would have otherwise admired and respected have gone off on vague and pointless rants about “a certain friend’s” Facebook conduct like it’s really that serious.
THIS is what Facebook has done for me. Is it worth it?
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