This post is written by my wife, Linda. Like many others nowadays, she recently deleted her Facebook account and writes about her reasons to do this in the following article:

…If you type ‘delete’ in the google search field, it almost automatically fills your phrase to ‘delete facebook profile’. Keeping that in mind, I’m guessing I’m not the only one who’s fed up with the social networking websites. Even though FB is getting numerous more members every month, there’s also quite a large percentage of people leaving ‘through the backdoor’. Most people complain about privacy issues, but I think that if you’ve got nothing to hide (and you’re not so stupid as to post your home address on your profile!) why be afraid? My reasons, therefore, had nothing to do with privacy.

My reasons

It’s been about a month since I’ve deleted my Facebook profile. I could go on and on about how much time I’m saving, but apart from that obvious reason, let me share with you the reasons behind this decision:

A slumbering and a direct cause

My history teacher always said that for every decision, there has been a direct cause and a slumbering cause. (Sorry, mr. L, this is the best I could in translating the two Dutch words you used!) The direct cause for me to delete my Facebook profile was the death of one of my good friends’ mother. Picture this: a man who suddenly lost his mother starts getting messages on his Facebook-wall from really close friends, who heard the news through telephone or text-message. Soon, all 170 ‘friends’ had something to say. Most messages (still on the wall, of course) went along the lines of ‘my condoleances, dude!’ or ‘wishing you strength!’.

Now, I know I’m old fashioned, but this, for me, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I know common courtesy or –gasp- etiquette are far to be found these days, but to think that writing 3 words on someone’s Facebook profile equals giving your heartfelt condoleances for the death of his mother is just…. Well, too much.

Two days after this fiasco, I announced the fact that I was going to ‘commit digital suicide’, at least when it came to social media – I gave my e-mail address, so anyone who’d want to contact me still could – and that was the end of it.

FB makes ‘friendship’ a cheap convenience product

As for the slumbering cause… it was just a more in-depth version of the above: I do not like this ‘convenient making’ of so-called friendship. It’s been said many times before, but how can you use the word ‘friend’ when talking about people you’ve added on FB? It adds nothing to construct actual friendships in my opinion. Your real friends will be there without social media and those who will not, weren’t friends to begin with.

That classmate (from years ago!) that you’ve added because you wanted to snoop around on his profile and see what has become of him – maybe even the people that bullied you in school (because what’s, humanly speaking, more fun to see an old rival getting divorced, being broke or immersing himself in other complete misery?)  – you’re not gaining anything by ‘checking up’ on them.  Friends will come and go, and that’s ok. Some friendships last for life, but trust me – you can count those on one hand. Most friends will be there for a certain amount of time. Maybe months, maybe years – but eventually they will move out of your life. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, either. I think friendship is best seen as a flowing process.  There’s no use in trying to keep past friends in your life, because your encounters will be no more than reminiscing on ‘the good ole days’. Concerning these things, it’s best to keep the past in the past –appreciate it- and move on.

If there should be people who need the convenience of Facebook to contact me, it’s best to let them slip out of my life. If my friends will still contact me, even if they have to go through the “enormous hassle” of sending me an e-mail or a birthday-card, they’ve proven their worth. ;)

It doesn’t deserve my time

Then there’s another reason. It’s called time. We usually have too little of it. No, cross out that last statement – we usually THINK we have too little of it. A wise man once said:

Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested.

And isn’t that just true? The people that changed so much in this world were given 24 hours in each day, just like yourself. They were given no more than 80 years (some much less!) to complete their work, just like yourself. There’s absolutely no excuse for having ‘not enough time’, we simply need to rethink our priorities and spend our time accordingly.

Facebook is a time sucker. I don’t think you’ll find anyone who contradicts that. It’s so easy to get caught up in it – you get a reply on something you’ve written (by e-mail) – click the link and see so much information. Of course you’ll filter out half of it. The other half is….. worth looking at (you think). Really, you have to have a certain amount of discipline not to lose track of time and spend hours upon hours reading, watching and commenting on… in essence, nonsense.

Last year, Jurino read the Bible from cover to cover and that’s something I envy him for. Reading through the Bible is a thing I’ve had on my ‘to do list’ for a long time now, but I never completely managed to go through with. Now, how can I justify spending even half an hour a day on something as silly as Facebook, and then complain I can’t spare that same half hour to read two or three chapters from the Bible?

Rethinking my priorities, Facebook needed to go!

I’m not saying everyone should delete all their social media outlets. I agree that it can me a great tool to keep in contact with friends and relatives that live far away. I just prefer the ‘old fashioned’ and more personal way of sending e-mails and even letters. (You know – paper, envelope, stamp!) For keeping in contact with people far away, these ‘older’ methods work fine for me, and they have both the benefit of keeping correspondence private and not sucking away any more of my time than I need to complete it. All in all, I haven’t missed my profile a single moment and deleting it felt just about as good as decluttering an entire room in my house ;)