Do Not Look Behind the Curtain...

My Facebook Finale

A couple of weeks ago my mother emailed me asking if I had requested to be her friend on Facebook, stating that she had received a friend request from me. Finding this odd since I rarely go on the Facebook, I told her that I'd look into it, suspecting that what she had most likely received was a friend suggestion generated by the Great Facebook itself. Given my total lack of interest in Facebook and my overwhelming interest in almost anything besides, the promise to investigate this seemingly fraudulent if even existent, request to my mother was lost in the ether, until this evening. In boredom I finally decided to see what had been going on with the request and determined that what my mother had received was in fact a suggestion made by Facebook to add me as her friend. In turn it was she who had requested to by my friend. Because I like her I decided to go ahead and befriend my own mother, and then sadly turned around and placed her on a more highly filtered list of friends so as to keep some of my personal life private if for no other reason than to well, have a little privacy. After doing all of this I previewed the page as my mother would see it and realized that all of my interests and hobbies, had disappeared and there was a note from the Great and Powerful Facebook letting me know that all of my hobbies and interests could be linked to pages now, and that all I needed to do was to add these pages if I wanted people to see that I was interested in say, birds. Worse still, I couldn't even state simply to my friends that I was a Northeastern Alumni, I had to actually add the Northeastern page to my profile if I wanted them to know this information. Well, that was the end of it!

Sometimes, when you aren't certain what decision you should make it gets made for you, and here life was clearly telling me which way to go. I threw in the towel, citing in my reasons for leaving that the website was nothing more than an advertising whore. Okay, I didn't say whore, but I should have.

Predictably, quitting Facebook is not as straight forward as one would hope. You, the account holder clicks on deactivate account and "yes I really want to deactivate" and selects the reason they are deactivating, you click "continue" and poof you are told that your account has been deactivated. Success. Until, you go to your personal email and you read the message that lets know that all you have to do to reactivate your account is log in…

“Huh? I'm confused”...at least that's what I was thinking. So, I logged back in and "congratulations your account has been reactivated!", bah. I proceeded to the help section as I realized that there is no actual delete my account option, found the FAQ "How do I permanently delete my account?", read through the mumbo jumbo about deactivation, and got to the section that said “BUT if you really, really, really want to delete your account; if you think you really, really, really will never use your account again click HERE". I clicked THERE, but alas still, my account is not deleted. It is once again deactivated with the caveat this time that if I do not log in for FOURTEEN days then, they will permanently delete my profile. If I change my mind however, before the FOURTEEN days are up all I have to do is log in and hey, it will be like my account never went anywhere.

The people that I care about I see in person, I talk to, I email, I send cute little texts to and I post on my blog to keep them updated about highlights in my life; it seems cliché but I have no use for Facebook, I think sadly its Facebook that needs me and US.

Tonight The Great Facebook will just have to find another me out there amongst the masses, because I'm out. I've left the ranks and while yes, I realize the banality and the zombie mentality that perhaps even putting a post up such as this about the Facebook exhibits and is, I have cut the strings, I am untethered! Hooray!

Manufacture’s Disclaimer: Participant’s account remains active for a fourteen day trial period at the expiration of which they may choose to continue or permanently discontinue their subscription. We make no guarantee that Facebook will not in the future offer the member a chance to reactivate their deleted account from a semi-permanent deletion hold that Facebook places on all accounts for a period no shorter than twenty one days and not exceeding infinity.