Firstly, the frequent and incessant checking of the News Feed. This happens several times throughout work, at home, and whenever I am mobile thanks to my Blackberry that I got a few months back. It’s cool to know what’s going on in people’s lives, and even my friend’s lives. But, I came to the realization that Facebook is not enhancing my social interactions, but making things more disconnected. I understand this is entirely specific to who I am. Facebook can do wonders at enhancing your social life, making it easier and fun to communicate and connect with people. Though idealistic, this can actually manifest itself as true for many users. But that is if you are of a somewhat social archetype, of which i am not (yet).

It’s been about 10 days since I have “de-activated” my Facebook account, and have not felt any urges to get back on. I’ve been fine keeping in touch with people through email, phone, and SMS. Sometime tommorow (sunday) I plan to finalize my exit from the Facebook bubble. I’m making the decision that I would rather have face-to-face, real interactions with people, even if that means not getting all the insider knowledge on things. I’m trading myriads of small details for fewer but deeper, richer, and most importantly, real, interactions.

Secondly, there is the networking aspect. I really had to think about this one. This year, I want to set aside large chunks of time to pursue a business venture that’s been in my head for several months. Would Facebook help me get to this goal? Will it help me make contacts? Would it help me newtwork? Is this really the platform to use? I take a look at my “Friends List” and see what kind of topics we communicate through facebook. Mostly fun little things, maybe share a funny youtube video here and there. A happy birthday greeting. Etc. I quickly realized that “no”, facebook will not be a useful vehicle in getting me to pursue a business opportunity

There is one last issue of leaving Facebook. For me, I love the web and appreciate the innovations in web technology. Mark Zuckerburg has become a figure that I somewhat admire. Facebook is such a cool concept. Particularly with photos, tagging, commenting, and basically an expansive sharing of experiences. Old photos can re-connect and reminisce long forgotten times. I had albums with a few old photos, some back from high school. I remember one photo that created a long thread of comments on one of my computer programming classes. I thought that was really cool, to be able to re-connect in that way where I don’t know how it would have otherwise. I struggle with this. Because deleting my account means these connections would disintegrate. It almost seemed like a yearbook, but for your life. People leaving notes on your wall. Reading about how things were a year ago, and what you were doing. Photos of memories. These would all be gone. Like tossing out a journal of life. Or deleting your daily blog. And it wouldn’t just be me parting from these memories, but I would be cutting my friends off from these shared pieces. That leaves me thinking whether this Facebook exodus would be somewhat selfish. It won’t just be me who will affected here. But then i think, how was it all done before? These are “extra” things that web technology has enabled, and in the grand scheme of things, the real memories of who we knew and experiences are all within us. We will always have reminders of friends, and that can take on many forms. Having a small piece of that on a Facebook server somewhere in the world will not change that. Real interaction, and real experiences. That’s how I want things to be.

To summarize, some reasons for taking my “face…off”:

1) Be more social. Have more real interactions.

2) Free up time for what I want to do, by eliminating something that has proved itself to be a consistent interruption to life.

3) To create content or action instead of feasting on information all the time.

We part ways tommorow. It was nice knowing you , Facebook. Farewell!