chasing the dragon - “deleting accounts feels soooooo good”
I’ve noticed recent trend in people feeling high and mighty by removing their social network profiles. Like, they are punishing the social networks or something. Yes, without us, they are nothing. We get it.
But…I still get a lot of use out of The Facebook. And I wanted to see for myself if it was true, and if deleting a social network profile was as gratifying to social geeks as shooting a vein full of heroin is to a junkie.
So, I decided to consider this whole B.S. Scoble/Plaxo/Facebook debacle. I’ve already removed Robert from my twitter stream cuz I find his twitter style dilutive ad useless to me, plus, he tends to be an echo chamber for information I’ve already found elsewhere or on my own. Facebook, as I state, still has a tremendous amount of social power for me. So I did the most obvious thing I could.
I deleted my Plaxo account. I never use the thing anyway, except to approve people who’s contact info I already have, or deny people I don’t know (the whole interaction sounds a lot like myspace is these days).
Maybe deleting Plaxo is just equivalent to “the really weak shit”, but I’m not feeling the buzz that you all seem to be getting.
Tags: Facebook, Plaxo, Scoble, shutthehellup
4. January 2008 at 10:31
I recently cancelled my MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts. Gratifying isn’t the word.
4. January 2008 at 10:41
gratifying isn’t the word, then what is?
if the purpose was similar to announcing a new address or phone number, I’d get it. My point was the number of people who were so…outright self righteous about it. I understand an act of defiance, but as I recall, your reason was that you simply weren’t using them, and the time was right.
I’m speaking more about people who were one day addicted to Facebook, and the next day defiantly against ever being near an app that has the ability to “superpoke”.
Of course, most of this post isn’t meant in a harsh or demeaning tone, nor is it directed to any one person or instance/event. It was a general commentary on herding-tendencies specifically within ’social media’.
4. January 2008 at 11:36
I’ve never really gotten why so many people hang on Scobel’s every word. He kind of seems like an arrogant prick. Who cares about his Facebook adventures? (I guess a lot of people do.)
In any event, thanks for the post. I see it as further evidence that the social media mass hysteria might be coming to an end (maybe that’s just wishful thinking.)
As I like to say: you’re not being social in front of a computer :)
4. January 2008 at 12:00
Lee,
Glad you liked the post!
I don’t agree with everything Loren Feldman says but he does occasionally have a valuable message wrapped up in rant and/or humor. In the case of his 2008 predictions video post:
http://www.1938media.com/2008-predictions/
He wraps it by saying that in 2008 we’ll all realize that the most important voice in the internet is our own, and not that of all of the idiots we are following.
I try to avoid following idiots, but I agree, the power of social media is the power of our own voice.
4. January 2008 at 18:17
I was a member of Plaxo for approximately 20 minutes before I realised that, despite the revamp, it hadn’t changed at all - and promptly deleted my account.
Facebook lasted considerably longer, but that was mostly inertia. I don’t miss it a single bit.
To be honest, I can’t understand what use people get out of it, except for the whole find-people-I-haven’t-spoken-to-in-10-years thing. And in my case, there is probably a reason I haven’t spoken to them in 10 years ;)
What’s your use case, Alex? Why do you value it? That’s what I always want to know when I hear folks talk about it.
4. January 2008 at 21:38
[...] a comment responding to my previous post, Lachlan Hardy asked me what continuing value Facebook had to [...]