Most of the arguments are in regards to privacy issues, and I agree with many (probably all) of them. As a computer geek, I have issues with their constantly evolving privacy policy and increasingly confusing privacy settings. I almost never condone an opt-out system. As a libertarian, I have issues with their attempts to monopolize every aspect of online interaction and integrate with just about every site and service on the Internet.
While decreasing privacy is a valid argument against the social media giant (every day it seems there’s another privacy breach) it’s not my biggest motivator for disabling and/or deleting my account. I certainly value the Fourth Amendment, but I’m not under the foolish assumption that if I delete my account the world won’t know my political and personal beliefs. This is the Interweb, I’m well aware that if I post something on ANY website it becomes public and I’m responsible for that content. I’ve had this blog up for years and have tweeted over 5,000 times, it’s too late for me to become anonymous, nor do I want to be.
Facebook is a total time suck.
This is the biggest one for me. I have To Do lists in my pocket, dozens of unanswered emails, voicemails never returned, petitions needing to be signed, half-read books… and what am I doing– checking Facebook. WHY? Once I start a new tab and type “F” my trusty Firefox loads Facebook and there goes at least an hour of my life. After that time goes down the drain I have nothing to show for it.
It’s yet another irony of modern society. We’re so concerned with saving time — reading Lifehacker, buying faster computers, finding ways 2 shorten our sentences, etc. — and then we go waste those saved hours on Facebook. WTF?
Think about all the things we could be accomplishing instead.
Here’s just one example: the global economy is teetering on the edge of collapse and instead of brushing up on our survival skills, we’re playing Farmville. Unfortunately, meticulously maintained virtual crops won’t feed you if the Dow crashes tomorrow and there’s a run on grocery stores. How about planting a real garden that will yield real food?
Overt marketing.
Facebook has always had advertising, but only recently has it become downright shameless. Your “Likes and Interests” are now automatically linked to Pages, usually tied to a company of some sort. Every piece of your profile is segmented, dissected, analyzed and sold to the highest bidder. Want to know how many 19 year-olds in Iowa like American Idol? Buy some ad space and Facebook will tell you.
Most people don’t have a problem with this, but I do. The focus is no longer about maximizing user-experience and facilitating meaningful interaction between friends, but to serve as a framework for selling ads. Everything you like, join, post, etc. becomes material for profit. No thanks, count me out.
Centralization.
Back in the day we used Gmail and Hotmail to send email, AIM for Instant Messaging, Digg and Reddit to share links and news, forums to discuss/debate, Twitter to post status updates, WordPress and LiveJournal to blog, Flickr to share photos, and YouTube for video. Now you can do all these things on Facebook. I have an account on many of these Web 2.0 sites, but I certainly don’t expect my friends and family to check all of them just to keep up with my life. It’s understandable people prefer to load one page and have all that content delivered to one place.
Centralization converts to convenience for many people, but there’s much to be said about diversity. Centralization means one company holds all the power, dictates all the policies, and retains all the data. A decentralized social media world means power and data are distributed, resulting in a much more secure and accountable system.
When I first entertained the idea of quitting Facebook, I scoured the Internet for an alternative, some kind of benevolent version of what Facebook used to be. Now I realize that’s not the solution either. I’m not comfortable with one company/entity being in control of the entire system. I don’t like central banks, I don’t like central governments, and I don’t want a centralized social network.
So I’m going back to life before Facebook. I’m going to resurrect my Digg account, recommit to Gmail, love Last.fm even more, keep blipping, tweeting and blogging, and if people really want to stay in touch and know what I’m up to, they’ll just have to work a little harder.
Ready to Delete?
First you have to decide if you want to disable or delete your account. Disabling means your profile is no longer published but the information is saved. You can log back in any time and restore your profile to its original state. Deleting your account removes your data from Facebook’s servers entirely (after a 14-day waiting period.)
There are plenty of guides already written that will help you through the process of either disabling or deleting your account. Be sure to make note of any friends’ contact information you may need access to later, especially emails and phone numbers.
What You’ll Miss
In a world without Facebook you may no longer know the birthday of every person you went to high school with. You won’t have dozens of random posts/businesses/concepts to “like” during the course of your day. You may not realize so-and-so has to work a double and then they’re going to watch Glee.
It’s okay, life will go on, I promise.
…Stay Tuned for Diaspora
This afternoon I learned about 
Diaspora, “the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network.”
Created by four NYU students initially looking for $10,000 in start-up funds, as of this posting they’re up to $55,000 and it’s still going up. **UPDATE: 12 hours after posting this, they’re now past $86,000 and people are noticing. Diaspora essentially aims to be an open-source version of Friendfeed (bought by Facebook in 2009.) Rather than create (and host) one giant system that tries to be everything to everyone, their open-source, distributed system will aggregate all desired content sources into one location.
What does that mean?
Well, for example, my Diaspora profile would probably be a conglomeration of photos, RSS feeds, Twitter, Last.fm, Blip.fm, and Digg, while somebody else may have their profile fed by Vimeo, Reddit, and Flickr. Share whatever content you want, Friend whoever you want, hide whatever you want. That’s the beauty of a protocol-driven open-source social network. Diaspora will allow us to maintain a diverse social networking world, while adding in the convenience factor we’ve now come to expect.
With the Diaspora system we will control our own data. Want to back up your Facebook status updates, friends list, photos, etc? Too bad, there is no option to do so, Facebook owns YOUR information. If you want to pry it out of their servers you need to use a third-party service like SocialSafe. Can you imagine Gmail not letting you export your Contacts? Or AT&T customers only being able to call other AT&T customers? Yet this closed-network lack-of-ownership system is perfectly acceptable behavior for Facebook.
For those reasons and many more, I am immensely excited about the arrival of Diaspora and highly encourage you to support its development.
The future is open, if we want it.
No use to his owner since he’s male and therefore can’t produce milk, he was chained up, starving, and almost too weak to stand when he was rescued by 
