Sorry, Facebook. I'm Done.

[ladyheatherlly]

About a week ago, I decided to take a break from Facebook.

Of course, they don't offer any sensible way to do this (i.e. setting a vacation message), so I made a couple graphics…

Comments

[confuzed]

I have multiple ways of stalking...I mean talking to you! ;)

[ladyheatherlly]

I know you do, and I love you for it! :)

[livejournal]

Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!
Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ.

[ladyheatherlly]

… how?

[antuisce]

I haven't had a Facebook since my brother died and some of my "closest" friends just sent me heart emojis via a post someone else made about his passing. It was a horrible feeling.

That being said, there is an option to deactivate your account without permanently deleting it. In fact I think you can't delete it and whenever you log back in it reactivates anyway.

I was contemplating reactivating because it's much easier to keep up with my friends overseas from my adventures over the years (honestly individual messaging is exhausting, it's way easier to send out one simple message to everyone from one place) but then I watched The Great Hack so now I refuse to go back out of principle.

[ladyheatherlly]

I am so sorry to hear about your brother. You're absolutely right - it's deeply fucked up that people couldn't be bothered to do more than send you an emoji, and I don't blame you for deactivating

[rock_dinosaur]

I agree with all you've said here. I actually feel that Facebook has a dehumanising effect: you are nothing more to your 'friends' than a generic user-icon. If you don't post or you leave the site, people are unlikely to notice you've gone, and if they do they don't care, because they don't see you as an actual person. Satiating their Facebook-addiction is more important than maintaining any real connection with those who populate it.

A big part of my reasons for persisting with LiveJournal during its long moribund period, and for extricating myself from Facebook, was that I felt I should have the single-mindedness to do what's right for me, regardless of what the multitude are doing. If only more people could do that instead of mindlessly following the sheep, Facebook wouldn't have so much power. I think change may be on the way, though. There must be a reason why LiveJournal is evidently becoming busier and I've recently been gaining new additions to my friends-list almost daily.

[ladyheatherlly]

Totally agree with everything you said, and I really hope you're right about change. The problem with LJ is that it's not mobile friendly - I wish they'd create an app that would make them more competitive with Facebook and other social media options.

[rock_dinosaur]

I don't have a mobile phone and don't want one, so that's not an issue that affects me, but some people whom I've tried to persuade to come back to LiveJournal have said that the crap mobile interface is an issue. Am I right in thinking there actually is one, but it's just a bit shit

[ladyheatherlly]

Man, don't even get me started on my hatred for smartphones. I build websites and make 3D art, both of which are meant to be viewed on a proper computer screen. It is so damn frustrating to spend weeks developing a beautiful website, only to realize that many (perhaps even most) visitors will only see a stripped down mobile view with limited functionality. D:

As for LJ shutting down… that might just be a scare story, but I've always expected it to happen sooner or later. It's not exactly encouraging that so much of their functionality is way out of date, and I don't know that the money they earn from ad revenue/paid accounts is enough to keep it going for the long-term.

MySpace still exists because they made radical changes. LJ will have to go that far, hopefully, but the site in its current iteration desperately needs to be streamlined and improved. It also needs to be more accessible to smartphone users… that's the way the world is going, as much as I wish it wasn't.

[ladystarblade]

I know a lot of people leaving Facebook...and while I get it (FB can get damn toxic and the whole enterprise is shadier than I like), it makes me kind of sad, if only because FB was the one place where I could be in touch with 95% of the people I wanted to stay in touch with. Now they're all scattering to other platforms, and I find I'm having trouble keeping up across those multiples. There's FB, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. It's like video streaming; I used to be able to go to one place for all the "content," and now there's so many more platforms to keep up with. And I'm failing pretty horribly at it. It's exhausting being social in the age of social media. (It's not that I'm getting old. Nope, not one bit! :-D )

[ladyheatherlly]

I get what you're saying. I think we were all drawn to that level of convenience at one point or another. It would be great if there was a *decent* platform out there that served that purpose, but Facebook? It's just not worth it.

As for struggling to keep up… perhaps you're putting too much pressure on yourself? There's no need to stay on top of everything - figure out what/who is most important, and make the rest of it optional. ♥