I have been off Facebook for a few months now. I have thought about it for a long time. I am friends with a lot of people on the site. There are a few people who I 1) care enough about to follow their lives and 2) can only connect with them through Facebook.
Some people have blogs. Others I can keep up with on Twitter or Instagram. For the rest, I do miss keeping up with them and their hijinks with their kids.
And I haven’t found a good solution for them.
I want to reopen my Facebook account so connect with those few people. If I do, I am going to go through my list and unfriend most of the people there. (Unfriend is such a harsh word. And they use it purposely.) We are not Facebook Friends™.
My biggest problem with Facebook is the endless striving for more! More people, more connections, MORE FRIENDS!
When I deactivated my account, its first solution was to suggest that I connect with more people. As if that was the problem… Not enough friends.
If I reactivate my account, I am going to pair the list down to those few people. I know Facebook will continue to show me friends of friends and people they think I might like. And people who commented on a post they made one time.
I don’t care about their family members.
I don’t care about their friends.
I don’t care about their co-workers.
I don’t care about…
I care about the people I care about enough to friend. The End.
And that’s the problem with Facebook. There’s no money in it for them for me to keep my social network small. And that’s where we disagree.
Facebook is not important enough for me to fight that fight. It’s not worth my time to keep fighting Facebook’s interests.
Most importantly, I haven’t missed it. I haven’t opened the browser or downloaded the Android app since I deleted it back in October. It’s not a part of life I find missing.
Do I want to reopen that door?