In an impulsive fit of blogger’s ire, I quit FaceBook last night, and deleted my account.

I never really used the site much, save for a month of flurried activity when I first signed up. My list of things I didn’t like about Facebook is much longer than my list of likes.

Facebook is certainly an impressive website. It’s MySpace that works. The apps are a brilliant idea.

Unfortunately I feel the above average technology is used in irritating or useless ways, and at worst - evil. That whole Beacon thing pissed me off.

It’s also just too popular for its own good. I reached a point where I was overwhelmed, spending time fending off emails with super pokes and vampires, resulting in blocking app behavior and ultimately deleting them. I was spending more time ignoring and preventing communication which is the opposite of what the site is supposed to be about. I didn’t feel enabled. I didn’t feel like I had any control. And most importantly: it wasn’t productive. Pretty much everything I did on Facebook was a just a huge waste of time.

Facebook became a chore, and not fun, so my usage dropped off considerably. And a social site you aren’t social on or having any fun with is… pointless.

Luckily, I was never a big enough Facebook user that quitting would mentally damage me. I wasn’t addicted to the site. It wasn’t integral to my life.

Deleting the account was straightforward enough, despite my concern that it would be hard. The most tedious part was deleting all my data first, as I’ve read they retain your data even after you delete your account. That meant deleting all apps, messages, and personal information, form field by form field. Even my picture is gone.

I’m still a little paranoid that my deletion wasn’t complete. A few more steps may be in order.

I suddenly feel lighter and a great burden has been lifted. Just like when I nuked my MySpace account.

Update: I got an email from a reader saying he didn’t find the account deletion process difficult. He got a confirmation email from Facebook saying it was deleted. I don’t believe I ever got that far, and my account was “deactivated” not deleted. Unfortunately, I don’t have a login and password anymore to see if this is true.

I’m glad I manually deleted all my information beforehand.

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