Omit Needless

Why to quit Facebook, leave MySpace, and abandon social networking

January 9, 2010 by Lonny.

Note: This follows a bit on the logic of my prior post, Rules for Social Media and Rules for 2010 as well as the whole Omit Needless principle. You may wish to review those.

As to why anyone would quit Facebook or social networking in general, I point not only to the posts above, but the stressful obligation people have to continue to participate in these communities (by posting updates, tweets, photos), and their fear of taking a break, or quitting altogether.

Rather than rant about my reasons for quitting Facebook, or creating an article called “Top 10 reasons to quit MySpace”, I’d rather let others do the talking for me.

I present below a list of people who have quit Facebook or left social networking altogether and links to their posts (with my favorite excerpts) as to their reasons. I encourage you to read their entire articles to develop an understanding of their reasoning.

All this post is dated January 9, 2010, I will be updating it in the future as other people post similar compelling arguments, particularly if they are prominent or public figures.

I am not discouraging social community building nor blogging (in its purest form – although you may wish to read “Everything I Know is Wrong“, a book review I wrote on my tech blog back in June 2008), but encouraging others to live simply and think about the actual effects of Facebook as it pertains to their relationships.

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Steve Tuttle – Senior writer for Newsweek Magazine
You Can’t Friend Me, I Quit – On Facebook’s fifth anniversary, a not-so-fond farewell (Feb 2009)

Nothing personal, former Facebook friends: I’ll miss those wall updates about doing dishes and changing the kitty litter. I’ll miss seeing those artsy photos of beach sunsets and city streets covered with snow. I’ll miss posting those, I mean. I’ll miss your constant name dropping and updates that make sure we all know you’re camping in a hemp tent on a sustainable emu farm in Costa Rica, or that you eat only dolphin-free tuna, and I should too. But most of all, I will miss those hundreds upon hundreds of baby pictures that remind me daily of how insanely happy I am that my kids aren’t babies any more.

Daniel Sieberg – CBS News Science & Technology Correspondent
My Declaration of Disconnection (Jan 2010)

But the epiphany for me was that I’d become a terrific “broadcaster” and a terrible “communicator.” Somehow in our 140-character Twitterverse the intimate details of their lives had escaped me. And isn’t that the important stuff? Not constantly sharing our geographical location or which restaurant we ate at or in my case when I’m appearing on a certain news program. It seems to me there was an awful lot of “telling” going on and not a lot of “listening.”

Ed Desautels – Author
Long on Face, Short on Book – My Experience with Facebook, and Why I’ve Quit (Aug 2009)

While there’s the appearance of connectedness and “networking” in the Facebook environment, I perceived a huge gap between the real-world me and the real-world friend with whom I was supposed to be interacting. This gap, to my mind, is distorted by the Facebook environment itself, which encourages that one-way, Look-at-Me-Generation brand of communication. It’s a communication strategy that is neither satisfying nor effective, and which is, to my mind, not particularly healthy.

Hannah VanderPoel – Student Writer for North By Northwestern, Northwestern University’s Independent Student Magazine
How Quitting Facebook Reminded Me of the Importance of Having a Good Old-Fashioned Conversation ( Feb 2009)

Quitting Facebook is kind of like quitting your job. It’s hard to do, but harder still is breaking the news to your nearest and dearest. Some even seemed slightly offended, as though my failure to continue our friendship via Facebook somehow diminished our friendship in real life. Reactions were not the ones of indifference that I’d expected, but ones of worry and fear: “Are you okay? Do you need to talk to someone about this? How will you know what’s going on?” Most assumed it was a minor blip, a short bout of a predictable mid-college crisis that is the twenty-something equivalent to purchasing a Ferrari — a kick that would last a couple weeks max, after which I would regain my senses and return to normal. Several times I heard the same old adage: “I’ll give you a week.” After so much skepticism, it admittedly became harder to stick to my guns. A barrage of doubtful reactions began to make me wonder if my decision was impulsive, or whether or not it meant I was just plain starting to lose it. I think the pinnacle was when someone asked me point-blank if I had social issues. (A personal note: I am not socially-phobic. The whole point of quitting was to put more stock in my social world, not my cyber one.)

Inspiration

• Article: How Facebook ruins friendships – Elizabeth Bernstein, Wall Street Journal
• Article: Cell phone holdouts are right: Buy a phone, become a baby – Lenore Skenazy, Free Range Kids
• Article: Facebook Exodus – Virginia Heffernan, New York Times

Tags: community, facebook, myspace, quitting, relationships, social media, social networking