Hi, I'm Russell, and I've come to the decision to remove Facebook from my life. This is my first post, and I've so much swirling around in my head as to why I think this is good idea, but actually typing this out is good enough for now.
Just so I'm not tracked down by the authorities, I'd like to add a caveat. The title, is just a title. I don't want to kill anyone. It just seemed catchy. I'm a libertarian at heart, I don't wish to harm anyone, in any way. Well, apart from Facebook's profit margins, perhaps. ;-)
As I lay in bed at 1am, tossing and turning, thinking about the next status update, or what my friends might be posting at this exact moment, or what I might be missing out on that couldn't wait 'til morning, I realised I'm addicted to my timeline, the next post, photo, whatever. Like an addict of any sort, it just couldn't wait, and I couldn't sleep, until I made sure I wasn't missing out on anything.
I've known for quite some time that my love affair with Facebook was over. It might have been the fact that I've reduced my 'friends' list from over 500 to fewer than 150 in the space of a few months, no longer could I watch the ramblings of imbeciles that I barely knew, never mind detested.
I'm probably not your average guy, although I'm most certainly of the Facebook generation. Born in 1982, everyone I know (apart from a few heroes of this work, that will become apparent as time passes!) is 'ON FACEBOOK'. I joined in 2007, pushed in to it by many loose acquaintances I knew from my time as a tour guide, people always wanted to "keep in touch".
I started using my profile with a 'fake' name, so these people I barely knew wouldn't be able to find me in my 'real life'. My work colleagues mostly did the same. It wasn't long before I had over 300 'friends'. I became 'friends' with my work colleagues. Facebook's 'mutual friends' suggested people I actually knew, and over the next couple of years, I changed my name to my real one, and 'The Facebook' was all the rage. Everyone was on it, most of my family, and all of my friends. Bebo and MySpace were dead, Facebook was the king of the yet-to-be-defined social media space.
So, what are my goals by creating this page?
1. To chart the history of my usage on Facebook, how and when it started no longer serving me, and I became a slave to it? Is my experience unique, or are there others out there that feel the same way?
2. Figure out how social media has changed how we interact, and chart what overall effect it has had on society? Am I/we being distracted from our real lives by our digital ones?
4. To figure out how it has a positive/negative influence in people's lives, and how it has affected social interaction, both personal experiences and that of others.
5. The effect of Facebook on Business, whether it is an effective advertising medium, and how people feel about adverts invading their social media experience.
6. The moral argument - is Facebook a company worth interacting with?
7. The effect on my life of getting rid of my Facebook profile
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