The last straw for me with FB came this morning when I opened my account and was visually assaulted with images and messages from other peoples' accounts about what they liked, what was on their minds, and so on.
I must be getting old. I can't take the unending barrage of images of people I don't know, and information about other Facebookers, every time I check in. Plus, Facebook makes it too irritating and difficult to secure my privacy (We are FB. Privacy? You ain't got no privacy. You don't need no privacy! We don't have to protect your stinkin' privacy!*). So, I deleted my account (**).
I guess I'm just not sociable enough for social media.
(*Sorry, Alphonso.)(** I think...I hope!)
16 comments:
I looked up how to permanently delete mine, followed instructions exactly, and never visited the site again - not to the point of logging in. Accidentally sent there, as happens. I can not find myself on there, now, and the account seems to be deleted. I was very careful during my short stay, so anything left from then is irrelevant.
Good luck.
I did, too. Tried to delete the two pictures I had uploaded to the account, but I don't think I was successful.
What a hassle. Hope the lesson has been learned.
It's probably a wisdom test -- whether or not a person stays with Facebook. So far, I'm not wise, but there's always the possibility.
You are wise. I've read your blog.
Things move at too fast a pace for me on Facebook. I think my age is catching up with me.
I have a feeling you didn't get in so deep that you couldn't extricate yourself fairly easily. It sounds as though Zhoen has been successful recently and I expect you will be too.
I agree with the 'getting too old for it' part but I've heard the cool kids don't FB these days; they've moved on to even faster sites their parents wouldn't dare try to access :)
I'm going to follow Z's example, provided I can keep my curiosity in check.
There was a time in my life when I wanted, felt I needed, to stay current, on the bleeding edge of things. Now, not so much. There are too many new "things" and they come along at a greater speed than I can assimilate.
I'm ready to shift down into a slower speed, try to enjoy more of the scenery.
Yeah, but when in a week, when the black suburban pulls up, and the guys in black suits and shades get out....then you'll know about the grassy knoll, area 51, and all that. keep in touch, if you can.........
anon
There's a grassy knoll at Area 51?!
I knew it! I just freaking knew it! Ike was right, after all. The M-I complex is behind all our manufacturing going to China, you know. Heck, even those black shades are made there!
I gotta go...there's a knock on the front door. Now, who would be at my door at 1:30 in the morning?
Well done Martha. Let the sad part of humanity stay on their side of the wall, and let us enjoy real life.
I don't know that Facebook users are a sad part of humanity, or are isolated from reality, any more than anyone else. In fact, some would argue that Facebook (and other social media) has brought down more walls than it has erected.
I am just not ready for that degree of contact with the rest of the human race. I may be the one erecting walls because I choose not to engage. Who's to say that my life is real and theirs isn't - we're just different from each other - and that's reality.
Mostly, Tom, I resented not having control over what the faceless entity Facebook had access to, regarding my privacy. I won't be owned by anyone or anything, nor willingly have my life mined for their commercial benefit. It's bad enough that Google's robots scan my emails for keywords then bombard me with unsolicited ads for crap I will never be interested in pursuing. Not only that, but the Google "machine" gleans photos attached to incoming emails and later places them in the sidebar, I guess to remind me of who it is I'm writing to - as if I needed a visual prompt.
Well, this is probably more than you asked for when you responded, isn't it? I apologize for the rant, friend.
I feel ambivalent about the extent to which I've committed myself to Google, and their attempts to access and join up more and more about me. Now I can't go to Youtube without their begging me to identify myself there with the same ID as elsewhere, and as you say, they've taken a still from one of my videos and without my consent use it as a profile photo on my gmail. Extricating oneself just seems to be too much trouble, and anyway, I use and value so many of their services that I can't really. I'm not paranoid and don't actually think my on-line goings on are of particular interest to the powers that be, and I've always accepted that e-mails are not secure.
On the other hand, using Chrome all the time, I've found various useful gizmos and extensions in their webstore such as Adblock and StopSocial, which in fact enable me to get rid of quite a lot of the annoying crap.
I do loathe FB, and am very relieved not to have got tangled up with it, beyond occasional viewings of open photo albums etc; but many of my family members, and not only the younger ones, are on it, and I'm aware I'd probably be in better contact with them if I had. I don't particularly disapprove, and I'm sure as you say, it's been beneficial for many people in enabling contact and communication, I just always found it unappealing, and I didn't like the unhealthy (as it seeemed to me) draw of nosing around in people's lives who I'd left behind long ago.
According to the Urban Dictionary, my occasional resource for finding out about such matters (though sometimes I regret doing so!), the hip youngsters are into Tumblr, and rather look down on FB. I've dipped around on Tumblr, though I find it rather hard to get a handle on, and in fact it's not that unlike old-fashioned blogging, with lots of pictures, and some of the stuff there is really nice...
I quite often feel sad and unreal with or without my on-line presence, but I can live with it!
Sorry for the ramble!
"Nothing like a good rant," I always say. "Does you a power of good."
I like rambles, especially when someone writes interesting stuff, as you have here.
I've been puzzling about my reaction to FB and my reluctance to join any other social media, such as Twitter, or make use of Tumblr. I think it's because I am changing, becoming - by choice, I believe - more solitary.
I have, thus far, been able to resist Google's exhortations to join Google-Plus, though they're getting sneakier each time they try to catch me. And I continue to sign in using the original pseudonym as when I opened the account.
Maybe I'm a Luddite and just don't know it!
Exactly so, Tom! Rants are purgatives for the soul.
I mostly like facebook. I only subscribe to the feeds of people whose posts I find interesting, I have all games and so on blocked, and I have a few good friends on there who I enjoy geting into discussions with about whatever they or I have posted. I find it a pretty easy medium to use. And really, there is no right or wrong to which social medium(s) you prefer. I don't do twitter or instagram ar pinterest because they bore me, but that doesn't mean I think the people who do like them are shallow or foolish. It's just not my thing. I'm sure there are peoplle on FB or those other sites that don't see the appeal of blogging. Which is, after all, just another social medium.
I am glad for you, Clovis, that you enjoy Facebook. I have family and friends who do, too, and have urged me over the years to get a FB account, which I've done twice now, with the same result - for me.
My posts on the subject of Facebook were about the entity Facebook, not about the people who make use of it. I find the company invasive, intrusive and somewhat un-user-friendly. I'm just not a social butterfly, or gadfly, or whatever (not saying anyone on FB is, either!) and for my preferences and personality, FB is more than I want to deal with.
Hell, I still write letters and post them in the mail, that's how backwards I am.
Thanks for your comment. It was nice of you to stop by.
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