Social Question

serenityNOW's avatar

Have you "quit" Facebook? When and Why?

Asked by serenityNOW (3643points) November 24th, 2013

Meaning, have you deleted your account? I did, and for a couple of reasons:
Pragmatically, for job-related background checks, and once because a new-beau said he “Facebook-stalked” me, his words, and the only dirt he brought up was “You were such a hippie!” Still, kind of rude. I also deleted my Twitter account and Google+ due to the job stuff.
More personally, because in the last couple of weeks, I had former childhood friends who “added” me (or attempted to) who I really thought had written me off. Maybe I’m too sensitive, but where my head is at that if they wanted to re-connect, they could have called… I’ve had the same phone number for many years, live at the same address and I have both a personal website, email and friends-of-friends who they could’ve hit up to get in touch with me. Honestly, I just found it offensive.
So, have you ever deleted your social media presence? If so, why? Do you regret it? Do you feel liberated?
I do have one slight misgiving, and it’s that I put up a page of my design work, but I didn’t really have much on it, never posted any updates, and I don’t think it was garnering an excessive amount of traffic, anyway.

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21 Answers

SQUEEKY2's avatar

Yeah,I deactivated my FB account a few years back,and have never looked back,was tired of total strangers wanting to be my friend,and a few family members that have had their FB account hacked,so just shut it down and have never regretted it.

SecondHandStoke's avatar

Found out which ex’s got fat.

Don’t need any more info.

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

I haven’t taken that final plunge and deleted my account, but I haven’t logged on in at least 6 months. I have better things to do.

glacial's avatar

I’ve never deleted my account, and never been aggravated by unwanted attention. I just tend my security settings, and I don’t add people I don’t want to be Facebook friends with. It’s really not that challenging to have a positive Facebook experience. The user has a lot of control, often more control than they realize.

OneBadApple's avatar

I’m trying to be the Last Man Standing, someone who has never had a Facebook account, and never will. OK, occasionally I’ll look over my wife’s shoulder at some photo that she finds interesting, but that’s it.

Our daughter and son-in-law presented us with our first grandchild in January. She has a Facebook account, but has never posted even one photo of him on there, and will not allow anyone else to do it either. This might sound a little weird or paranoid to some people, but it instinctively seems right to me…

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

@glacial I’ve heard that most Facebook users have little or no idea of the control options. To be honest, I don’t want to spend any time or effort learning.

ibstubro's avatar

I deleted my Facebook account about 5 days after I opened it. I joined because I wanted to see the family pictures of a old friend from HS. 2 days later a friend posted vacation pictures to my “wall” that I found wildly inappropriate. The next day the safety director from work (definitely not a real life friend) tried to befriend me. Again, in my opinion, inappropriate. I couldn’t maintain enough control for my liking so I just deleted the account.

I value my privacy, and I’m not overly curious about whether you’re a Belieber, or not.

Pachy's avatar

I had an account for a while—though with absolutely no personal info on it—only to be able to check out a couple of close friends’ pages and also more easily sign in to various forums and. I deleted it earlier this year, even though I had every option turned off, because I was worried about my security and hated feeling like a FB lemming. The idea of friending or being friending was always a turnoff to me, and FB didn’t offer me one single feature that I cared the slightest about. I love telling people I’m not on FB!

ibstubro's avatar

Actually, now that I think about it, I have the best of both possible worlds, a ‘business only’ FB account. They’re structured differently, and having a bunch of strangers friend you is a good thing. If I ever want to go on FB and check somebody’s pictures or something, I can. Never been that interested, but it’s possible.

Like @Pachyderm_In_The_Room, I sort of get a kick out of telling people I don’t have FB.

flip86's avatar

I haven’t deleted my account but I have it as locked down as it allows. The only reason I keep it active is to keep in touch with family. I only allow family as freinds.

I hardly ever post anything, and if I do, I delete it the next day. My timeline is empty.

cookieman's avatar

Yes.

I killed it two or three years ago (after having been on it for about a year).

I quickly built up over 100 “friends”. Soon, folks I haven’t seen since high school made it apparent why we hadn’t kept in touch all these years unfriend

Then, some folks were posting hateful or ignorant things unfriend

Other folks, I saw in real life often, so that was pointless unfriend

Some lovely folks I knew from here but preferred the interaction on Fluther unfriend

Soon, all I was left with was one friend and one cousin, who I could just as easily kept up with via eMail and phone unfriend

Then I deleted my account. I do not miss it in the least.

Unbroken's avatar

I take fb holidays either by announcing it or just not checking or posting. Sometimes I just use the message feature which can be an independent phone app.

My security settings are private. I used to post a lot more and was more active in what was happening in terms of real life. Now I have more friends and yeah I have a few lists. But if I can’t post it to everyone I ask why am I posting this. And don’t post it. So I almost never use that feature.

I have a diehard friend who only became a fber because a friend made his account for him. He posts and uses fb more then I do.

Berserker's avatar

Never deleted mine, I’m just never there. Seems so pointless other than keeping in touch with peeps. Guess I better be careful what I put there in the rare times that I do, if potential employers check that shit out. :/

ragingloli's avatar

Never started. I am not a product to be sold to advertisers, the NSA should work for their money and Zuckerberg, that soulless ginger, can go suck a horse-cock.

Berserker's avatar

@ragingloli Well you’re lucky. Don’t start an account. Once you do, it is apparently impossible to completely delete, you can only ’‘put it to sleep’’, but it’s still out there. (so far as I know anyway, I’m basing this on the fact that I did once try to delete mine about two years ago)

LornaLove's avatar

I did years ago due to a bad experience with a stranger. Or group of strangers. I opened one recently for a designer account I have and because I moved countries I can’t get back into it as it seems to think I am trying to hack it. A friend of mine years ago opened one and posted loads of bikini photo’s of herself and also cannot get back into that account for some reason and it fills her with despair.

Earlier days too I would post any photo up there and saw a few posted on dating sites and others on not so favorable sites.

I always had the feeling I was being ‘watched’ by this silent bunch of people who barely spoke to me really. Facebook sucks.

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

Among the many things that I dislike about Facebook, this one’s at the top of my list: anyone can post photos of me at his/her own account and tag them with my name.

Maybe it’s nobody’s business whether I spent Friday night at a house party. Perhaps I don’t want the whole world to know that I did on Sunday. Yet, people put my picture online, along with my name and detailed information about the activity or event.

jonsblond's avatar

Never. I don’t understand how people have a negative experience with Facebook. You don’t have to share everything and you can remove those who do from your feed. Privacy settings allow you to make it so others need your permission if they want to tag you, but people can still post pictures of you even if you don’t have a fb account. They may not be able to tag you, but they can still type your name in the description of the photo. I suggest not letting anyone take your picture if you don’t want it to appear on fb.

It’s really not that challenging to have a positive Facebook experience. The user has a lot of control, often more control than they realize.

^I agree, @glacial

I need breaks from Fluther, not Facebook. I can control who I see and interact with at fb, but I can’t do that here.

Valerie111's avatar

No but I only use facebook to play Candy Crush Saga.

serenityNOW's avatar

All in all I’m happy I did it. I really wish I got some people’s contact info, but otherwise I don’t miss it. In retrospect, I could’ve bumped up my privacy, but another component is that I don’t have to read the multitude of bullshit that my misinformed “friends” posted about. I do apologize to the Dalai Lama; he lost a Like.

Qav's avatar

I’ve wanted to, but if I do, I will lose contact with family and with a few friends who actually matter. My daughter quit, and I miss that contact extremely.

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