4 ms·

Why I left Facebook

6 points by dgurney 15y ago

endlessvoid94 15y ago
I thought this was going to be about leaving facebook as an engineer.
- warfangle 15y ago
  So did I - I remember a slew of similar articles about leaving Google et al a couple years ago.
  - dgurney 15y ago
    haha yeah i can see how it could come off like that.. sorry to disappoint :)
warfangle 15y ago
I did this about three (or four, maybe? I forget) months ago. I actually feel happier. More focused. I guess the tipping point for me was seeing an image. I can't find it anymore (it's lost in my tumbleblog somewhere). It was split horizontally, like a comic book; the top pane was Assange, the bottom was Zuckerburg. Assange's photo was labeled: "I take private corporate and government secrets and make them freely public, and I'm a criminal." Zuckerburg's was labeled: "I take your private social information and sell it to corporations for profit, and I'm Time's man of the year." Pretty much got me right there...
- dgurney 15y ago
  oh yeah, I remember that image too. I guess I'm ok with them selling my info because I freely gave it up and I knew that was going to happen. Not saying it's right, but also not saying I was duped. But definitely a valid reason for leaving.
Apocryphon 15y ago
I'm disappointed; I thought he meant that he was an ex-FB employee. That would make for juicy insider gossip.
ajslater 15y ago
Pretty common to see grandstanding "I left" posts for Facebook. Not as much Twitter. Or really any other service that someone just stops using without devoting an entire blog post to the minutiae of how and why. Coming up next: WHY I LEFT COLOR. Edit: I too was looking for gossip from a former engineer.
lordlarm 15y ago
The author should have said: "Why i deactivated my Facebook account", but it's ok. I did the same thing a while back at it was great. Reactivated again in order to get invited to certain events (yeah, people tend to 'forget' to remain those not on facebook) and to access peoples birthdays. But deactivating my facebook account for some months really got me to realize how much time I was spending there, and how most of it was a waste. And as the author points out: "Not social at all".
MatthewB 15y ago
I deactivated my Facebook account last week. I have been an active member of facebook since early 2005...right at the beginning. It was awesome at first, I could connect with my friends and see what they were doing, and share photos with people easily. Fast forward a few years and now everyone is on facebook. I had 400 or so "friends" and only about 10 of those people I actually cared about what they were doing. The signal to noise ratio became too poor. Yes, I could have setup groups and filtered my results and bla bla bla, but I didn't want to. The only value I got out of facebook was I had a contact list of pretty much everyone I have ever known. This was not enough to keep me interested. Anyone I was doing business with I can keep in touch with on linkedin, which provides me exactly the information I am looking about those people. My close friends and family I keep in contact with this crazy idea of...BEING AROUND THEM. I quit facebook and haven't looked back.
- dgurney 15y ago
  amen to that! The signal-to-noise issue really bothered me too.. I hated only being able to send a status message to EVERYONE, and setting up groups would've been too time consuming.

Why I left Facebook

6 points by dgurney 15y ago

endlessvoid94 15y ago

I thought this was going to be about leaving facebook as an engineer.

warfangle 15y ago
So did I - I remember a slew of similar articles about leaving Google et al a couple years ago.
- dgurney 15y ago
  haha yeah i can see how it could come off like that.. sorry to disappoint :)

warfangle 15y ago

I did this about three (or four, maybe? I forget) months ago. I actually feel happier. More focused. I guess the tipping point for me was seeing an image. I can't find it anymore (it's lost in my tumbleblog somewhere). It was split horizontally, like a comic book; the top pane was Assange, the bottom was Zuckerburg. Assange's photo was labeled: "I take private corporate and government secrets and make them freely public, and I'm a criminal." Zuckerburg's was labeled: "I take your private social information and sell it to corporations for profit, and I'm Time's man of the year." Pretty much got me right there...

dgurney 15y ago
oh yeah, I remember that image too. I guess I'm ok with them selling my info because I freely gave it up and I knew that was going to happen. Not saying it's right, but also not saying I was duped. But definitely a valid reason for leaving.

Apocryphon 15y ago

I'm disappointed; I thought he meant that he was an ex-FB employee. That would make for juicy insider gossip.

ajslater 15y ago

Pretty common to see grandstanding "I left" posts for Facebook. Not as much Twitter. Or really any other service that someone just stops using without devoting an entire blog post to the minutiae of how and why. Coming up next: WHY I LEFT COLOR. Edit: I too was looking for gossip from a former engineer.

lordlarm 15y ago

The author should have said: "Why i deactivated my Facebook account", but it's ok. I did the same thing a while back at it was great. Reactivated again in order to get invited to certain events (yeah, people tend to 'forget' to remain those not on facebook) and to access peoples birthdays. But deactivating my facebook account for some months really got me to realize how much time I was spending there, and how most of it was a waste. And as the author points out: "Not social at all".

MatthewB 15y ago

I deactivated my Facebook account last week. I have been an active member of facebook since early 2005...right at the beginning. It was awesome at first, I could connect with my friends and see what they were doing, and share photos with people easily. Fast forward a few years and now everyone is on facebook. I had 400 or so "friends" and only about 10 of those people I actually cared about what they were doing. The signal to noise ratio became too poor. Yes, I could have setup groups and filtered my results and bla bla bla, but I didn't want to. The only value I got out of facebook was I had a contact list of pretty much everyone I have ever known. This was not enough to keep me interested. Anyone I was doing business with I can keep in touch with on linkedin, which provides me exactly the information I am looking about those people. My close friends and family I keep in contact with this crazy idea of...BEING AROUND THEM. I quit facebook and haven't looked back.

dgurney 15y ago
amen to that! The signal-to-noise issue really bothered me too.. I hated only being able to send a status message to EVERYONE, and setting up groups would've been too time consuming.