I’ve noticed that a few people I know have quit Facebook
lately, and I’m working on an article about it.
If you’ve quit Facebook or know someone who has, can you point me toward
them (via alternate channels, of course)?
I posed this question to my Facebook friends (ironic, isn’t it), and here is what they said:
-- Friend drama.
As in, your friends are fighting with each other, you are sick of
refereeing them, so you take yourself off of Facebook so they won’t have the
opportunity to use your Facebook page to snark at each other. I would solve this problem by un-friending
with extreme prejudice, but then, I don’t have kids whose parents I have to be
friends with (which I understand can result in an uncomfortable political situation
in itself),.
--Privacy drama.
As in, you feel like you don’t want everyone to see pictures of your
kids, and /or you’re afraid your house is going to get robbed if you mention
you’re away on vacation. I personally
think there is a solution to this one (using Facebook in a smarter way/ keeping
privacy settings updates/ not giving out your location information), but to
each his/ her own, I guess. I also feel
like anyone with privacy drama on Facebook is blaming the medium, so you know
they are going to pop up on Flickr with pictures of their kids, but still, I
understand where this one is coming from.
--Political drama.
As in, you like your friends, and you are sick to death of seeing their
political beliefs fill up your feed all day long. I get this, as I have several friends/ family
members with whom I do not agree politically.
I have hidden their feeds so I can stay connected to them without having
to get into debates, which I don’t think is civilized or productive for
anyone.
--Time suck drama. As in, you (or someone you love) has pointed out that you waste too much time on Facebook, and since you can’t limit yourself to 15 or 20 minute increments, you have chosen to quit altogether. This one I totally get, but I would like to still say to these people—you don’t have to play Farmville all day, and now you have cut me off from your life. Still, to each his/ her own. I respect you and your lack of self-control.
-- "Other people's lives are more awesome than mine" drama. This one totally surprised me, as I thought everyone just assumed that everyone else selectively curated what they put on Facebook. Is that just me? There's even an article about this whole phenomenon in Forbes today.
I also heard that kids are sick of being supervised on Facebook, so they are switching to SnapChat and/ or Instagram, but I think I would expect kids to be more adaptive in their technology, so I'm talking about Gen X/ Gen Y people (in case you're interested).
Overall, I have been noticing another trend on Facebook that I’m researching and making notes about—the fact that we’re all becoming a little less civilized and less “on our best behavior” as the years go on, resulting in Facebook, which used to be a lovely little social gathering, now being more of a loud, noisy bar with everyone yelling their opinions all the time. Stephan and I have constructed a semi-hilarious list of our favorite Facebook archetypes, which I believe I will share with you tomorrow.
For now, if you quit, let me know why! I would love to include you in the article.
