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Thoughts My Life After Facebook

… deviates by about 0.35% from my life during Facebook.

That’s not a random percentage either. I’m assuming that on average I spent about 5 minutes a day on Facebook (not that I actually went on everyday, but if I had to take a good guess at it, 5 minutes/day makes sense).

I’d like to say that there was some grand purpose in my leaving, but in reality, it’s just Facebook. It is/was just another social network that I didn’t use that often and didn’t care too much about. A typical Facebook excursion would consist of checking out new photos that a friend put up after traveling, a quick “Happy Bday!” post, and a sarcastic (read: smart-ass) remark on someone’s wall or in reaction to a new status. That’s it.

My Timeline to leaving Facebook

My plan to leave Facebook started when I first heard about Timeline. Actually, that’s a lie. I’d heard about Timeline for a while, and didn’t really care about what it was. Finally, after skipping over a bunch of my Google Reader feeds on the subject, I took a gander. If I recall correctly, I didn’t care in the slightest bit about the UI changes, but I did pay closer attention to the terms of use changes. I had always noticed that Facebook liked to store data and to opt people into services very easily, but there was something different this time. Maybe I didn’t like the idea that Facebook might store some of my data forever (better explained here) regardless of what I had to say about it (i.e. I leave the service at some point, but they still retain my data).

Oh, or maybe it was that one time that I made a fake Facebook account on my old, old Hotmail address, and within a day it was suggesting I add all my current university friends (who I had never emailed from that Hotmail address). That one creeped my out something fierce. Whatever it was, something made me really start to dislike the service of Facebook, the notion of Facebook, being on Facebook, talking about Facebook, etc… Around that time I removed all personal data from my Facebook page (likes, dislikes, interests, birthdays, etc…), but remained on it so that I could still view my friend’s pictures. It was also around that time that they were beginning to allow opt-ins to Timeline (subject to the new terms of use).

Thus, due to all the reasons stated above (actually, largely due to the creepiness of it figuring out my university friends from a fake account), I made the bold claim (probably as a Facebook status) that I would leave Facebook if I was ever forced to join Timeline…

In my next post, I’ll fast-forward several months to my Facebook-departure and list a few things I miss about it, as well as reactions I’ve received from my friends and family.