[Why I Left Facebook]

I decided to delete almost all my activity and all my photos from Facebook when they announced that Timeline would become compulsory. While I really think that Timeline is a bad idea as it lets your history be browsed in a very easy manner, this was not the only reason I left.

While deleting all my activity from the last 3 years or so, I felt like I was becoming more isolated, like I was actually deleting parts of myself. This is where having a Facebook account got me - I actually associate my ideas, my personality, my life with it! I think many people on Facebook feel the same.

It is as if we were building this online presence for ourselves, a portfolio of our egos to be stroked and nurtured and grown larger and larger by other egos. I don't want to be a part of that society anymore. I always silently envied people who decided to not be on Facebook at all. I am not a Facebook account, I am a person and I live in the real world. I do not require 50 Likes to value my own thoughts. I do not feel the need to post pictures of myself on parties, to show off my life as if that would make it better than it is. I don't need people to think I am interesting and that I have things to share. Maybe I do, maybe I don't. If somebody wants to find out, they will make the effort. I don't want to feed them my life story as if it was something cheap to just throw around.

I did keep my Facebook account and some posts I've done that link to this web site or to other sites I found interesting. Facebook as an idea is great - and I can still use it to privately get in touch with people or to be part of groups that matter to me. But I am done with the self-pleasing and ego-masturbation. I believe I made the right step towards my personal freedom.