下面是从无名处转来的一篇简单翻译后的文章，最后附有英文原版。

注：Facebook：世界最大的社交网络，中国同类网站有人人网、开心网等。

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在这个社交网络泛滥的年代，朋友转发了一个博客链接，讲的是一个重度“脸书”用户“挑战自己”，决定停用这个社交网络平台，并且记录下自己的心得体会。有很多有意思的观点，有些直指这个“最牛浪费时间机器”（world’s biggest time sink）的痛处。原文很长，并且不可否认，作者的有些观点，连我都持保留性意见。根据曾经的师太在康大研究网络交流的一些经验，有些还是以偏概全了，所以只是节选了一些有意思的词句，就不逐句翻译了。

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终于完成了这个“离开Facebook”三十天的计划！在过去的两年里，我一直是Facebook的忠实用户。我不能保证，在过去的这三十天里，我所有的感悟都能够引起你的共鸣，但愿某些共通之处，会引发你的思考。

1. Facebook上的交流通常都是都是“次重要的”

我意识到当我停止使用Facebook后，生活中的交流量（communication volume）大幅减少，但是那些重要的有意义的交流却没有受到影响，丢失的那些，在我看来，其实是写噪声（noise）。

坦诚的说，Facebook上的交流是浅层次的。你可能会阅读成百上千的并无太深层次的朋友们写的状态消息，大多数内容都是无聊并且没什么意义的。Facebook在情感上造成这种“你在于你的朋友保持联络，建立感情”的假象，但实际上，你只是在浪费时间。某些状态消息的确是诙谐或者机智（witty）的，但没有什么是会改变你生活的。阅读这些状态消息的确会让你与你的朋友圈，这个世界，有一种连续性的“保持联系”的快感，但长期和深远的影响则微乎其微。

2. 你需要为冲动型分享（impulse sharing）付出代价

刚离开Facebook的时候，我总有冲动想要分享我在某刻的所思所想，或者贴出一张有意思的照片。过去，每当我分享一些我生活的片段，我会不断的回头check，看看有谁回复了，引发了什么有有意思的对话，我是不是要进一步回复…

当我的生活中没有了Facebook，我必须强迫自己让这些情绪自然而然的消退（come and go）。我会感到失望，失望可能会看到这些文字或者图片的朋友们，会有怎样有趣的反应和回复。

但从另一个角度想想，我放下了这种虚无的跨空间“联系感”，我更加专注于我眼前所做的事情，并能更好的心无旁贷的与我眼前的朋友们交流。这样的变化是缓慢的，需要一段时间才能体会到。

我感觉我从前的生活，过多的被这种虚无的联系感锁牵绊和制约，我因为失望看不到我的朋友给我的回复（有些人甚至都不是我的朋友，不过是陌生人而已），所以“迫使”我要不断的分享我现在生活的状态，这股力量推使着我无法专心于眼前的生活。现在，是时候夺回主动权，让我来理智的选择我生活的方式了。

3. 朋友们不再是有个性的个体，他们变成了一个整体

Facebook让我觉得我的一个一个立体鲜明的朋友变成了一个网络，一整版的“新鲜事”，一个没有个性的群体。当我更新状态的时候，我到底是在和谁说话呢？是哪个特定的朋友吗，不是，是这个整体。

我甚至感到惊奇，在离开Facebook的这些日子里，我其实有多么“不留恋”我在Facebook上的那些朋友，因为对于我而言，他们不是一个个独立的个体，不过是一团模糊的概念，我甚至都不知道和我失去联系的到底是五个，七个还是十几个朋友，我并没有特别的想念其中的一个或者几个。

对于那些，我至少在现实生活中说过话的朋友，我可能会有些想念，但我并不需要用FB来保持和那些“真实朋友”的联系，我可以打电话，面对面聊天，出来和他们吃饭，所以我也并不觉得离开了Facebook，就是离开了他们。

4. Facebook造成了一种虚假的并且满意度不高的社交体验

我总是希望有一个“独处”和“群居”的平衡，也就是说，当我一个人宅太久的时候，我会希望和朋友们见见面，但当连续几晚都party的话，我有希望花些时间一个人待在家里。那Facebook上的交流，是算一个人待在家里，还是算和朋友聚会呢？它让我觉得自己好像和朋友们在一起，但泡Facebook半天之后，我仍然觉得“社交饥渴”，希望有和朋友面对面的机会，同时，我又没有很好的利用我“独处”的时间，并没有把宝贵的时间花在和自己对话上，而是浪费在查看并且回复朋友们的状态上了。

这就好比是，渴了，应该和白开水，却喝了咸水，当下觉得解渴，过后却更渴。

5. Facebook是电脑之间的交流，而不是人际交流

事实是，使用FB的过程，你不过是在用电脑，手机或者其他电子设备来输入或者输出无关紧要的信息罢了。

下次在你想用FB的时候，好好想想，你到底在干什么，你周围有其他人吗，你在和他们说话吗，这个对提升你的生活质量有帮助吗，你期待这个从哪方面能够带动你前进，如果接下来的二十年你继续这样使用Facebook，你能想象后果是什么吗？

面对面的人际交互有太多是网络交流所不能取代和比拟的，至少现在不行（btw，要是康大的杰夫和杰尔米同学要是看到这句话，要是整个CSCW的committee看到这句话，是会觉得要吐血而亡，还是任重道远呢…）

笑容也不是笑容，拥抱也不是拥抱，一切只是你按了某个键而已。我觉得Facebook不是社交，不过是逃避真实社交的一种方式罢了。如果你要反对我说的这句话，那你就当面来跟我说吧，如果你只是通过打字，留言来告诉我这不正确，你不过是在支持我的论点而已。是的，我知道这很邪恶, XD

6. 朋友并不是真的朋友

关于这一点，作者讲了很多他自己如何通过戒掉Facebook，从而返回到他自己感到舒服的社交圈里的故事，在这里不一一陈述，不过一个重要的观点是：

有多少你在Facebook上交流得热火朝天的朋友，你可以在生活中和他们成为真正的朋友呢，你们到底有多少共通点，你们有多聊得来？真正想想这一点，你会发现，在Facebook上，你有多少“松散的”社会关系，那些你只见过一面的人，甚至你都没有见过面的人，都知道你周末去哪儿玩了，晚餐吃了什么，这样的真实社交和虚假社交的落差，你可以接受吗？

7. 你不过只是上了瘾而已

你在FB上交流最多的人，通常也是对Facebook上瘾比较重的人。他们频繁更新状态并且留言，因为他们在这个平台上花费了大量的时间，所以你看到的最多的信息也是来自于他们。简而言之，如果你和他们交流过多，这些非常没有工作效率，不重视自己时间，不为自己创造有效价值的人，会对你造成不好的影响，并最终也把你拽入这个浪费时间的深潭。

8. Facebook是一种懒惰的社交方式

仅仅是打一些字，点击一些链接，你就认为你拥有了你希望的真实的社交生活了吗？你有多看重你在Facebook上建立的这些友谊和关系，你有多享受这样的交流过程，还是你只是懒惰甚至是逃避可能的面对面的社交场合，通过网络交流来填补自己空虚的内心？（哇，作者这里讲得也太狠了点儿吧 呵呵）

除了Facebook，你还可以做什么？

你可以去看看演出，和朋友吃吃饭，认识一些陌生的新的朋友，即使你会紧张，但你可以通过练习来让自己更自然。

是时候来好好审视一下你在Facebook上花的时间是否给你带来了有效果有意义有回报的交流体验和人际关系价值了，这些有没有帮助你巩固某些关系，让你得到有益的启示和教导，还是只是让你和一群无所事事的人一起每天无所事事？你可能会交到一些有意思的朋友，但那些远远比不上你所浪费的时间。

的确，面对面的交流对你的社交技巧的要求更高。如果你不是一个擅长交流的人，你可能可以在网络上扮演这样一个“聊得来”的角色，但长期看来，你仍然得不到任何现实生活中社交技巧的提升。

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当然，作者最终的结论是，他永远不会重返Facebook了。

那你呢？

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原文：

It’s been about 30 days since I quit Facebook, so I wanted to share an update on what that’s been like. Many others also quit the service last month, and many more are on the fence as to whether they should do the same.

Here are some realizations I’ve had as a result of leaving Facebook after 2+ years as an active user. I’m sure some of these realizations can be generalized to social networking as a whole, but I’m going to focus mainly on my personal experience with Facebook. I can’t guarantee you’ll find much overlap between my realizations and your experiences, but I’m sure some people will see similar patterns.

Facebook communication is mostly low-priority noise.

When I dropped Facebook, I noticed that the communication volume in my life dropped significantly. However, I felt no drop in the level of significant and meaningful communication. What I seemed to lose was mostly a lot of noise.

Generally speaking, communicating via Facebook is a shallow experience. You read streams of brief messages from a variety of people, but the messages don’t contain much depth. Most are trivial and mundane. Some are clever or witty. Very little of the information you’ll digest on Facebook is memorable and life-changing. Using Facebook can still give you a feeling of connectedness, but the long-term benefits are negligible.

Facebook essentially gives you the emotional sense that you’re doing something worthwhile (i.e. connecting with people), but when you step back and look at your actions and results from a more objective perspective, it becomes clear that you’re really just spinning your wheels.

Consequently, when I dropped Facebook, I let go of a lot of trivial communication, but I don’t have the sense that anything truly valuable has been lost.

Impulse sharing comes with a price.

In the weeks after quitting Facebook, I still felt the urge to share certain things with my online “friends”. I’d have a clever thought and feel, I should post this.Or I’d take a really cool photo and think, I ought to share this.

In the past I’d have shared those tidbits out of habit. Then I’d check back in later and read through a few dozen comments people left. And there would be a little emotional reward in having that sense of connection.

But without the option to impulse-share during the past 30 days, I allowed those feelings to come and go without acting on them. I noticed that there was a consequence to sharing in real-time. I wasn’t being very present in the moment. While things were happening around me, I was off thinking about my online posse and what I might wish to share with them.

When I stopped acting on the desire to impulse-share, I become more present to what I was doing in the moment. Instead of being distracted by thoughts of connecting with people at a distance, I did a better job of connecting with the people right in front of me. I felt more immersed in my experiences. That was a subtle change at first, but it feels good.

During the past two years, I’d often feel obligated to share frequent updates with my online “friends”, most of whom I’d never met in person. If I didn’t post an update for a while, some would complain. If I shared something cool, people would thank me for it.

Now that I’ve been rolling back this conditioning, I can see what a dead end it’s been. I allowed social media to condition me to behave a certain way, but it’s not a conscious choice I would have made otherwise. So it’s nice to regain conscious control over this part of my life.

Even after 30 days, the desire to impulse-share is still there, but it’s growing fainter, replaced by a growing desire to “be here now,” fully present in what’s going on in front of me. I still like sharing, but it’s better to do so thoughtfully instead of impulsively.

Friends lose their individuality and become part of a collective.

Facebook compacts so much communication into a single stream, and this can have a depersonalizing effect. As I continued to use the service to interact with people en masse, I gradually began thinking of my online friends as a network, stream, or blob, as opposed to valuing each person as a unique individual.

When I’d post a status update, who was the intended recipient? Which friend was I updating? In truth I wasn’t sharing with anyone in particular. I was simply sharing with the collective.

If I posted something on a friend’s wall, I wasn’t just communicating with that friend. I was communicating with their posse too. If I used the private messaging feature, it was just one message among dozens. Friends were becoming like interchangeable drones.

One thing that surprised me was just how few of my Facebook friends I actually missed when I left the service. It was difficult to think of my old Facebook friends as individuals. They were all just part of the collective whole. When I unplugged from the collective, it wasn’t like I’d lost any individual friends. I can barely remember the names of all the people I used to connect with there. I’d already lost the ability to distinguish Third of Five from Seven of Nine.

Dropping Facebook wasn’t at all like disconnecting from hundreds of individual friends. I didn’t miss anyone in particular because my Facebook experience was like connecting with a collective. I noticed the absence of the collective when I left, but I didn’t miss it per se.

The exception is that if I knew specific Facebook friends from real life, meaning that we’d met in person and had at least one good conversation together, then I could still see them as individuals. But I don’t need Facebook to stay in touch with those people anyway, so I didn’t feel like I was losing any of these connections by dropping Facebook.

I realize this might sound rather strange, but it’s the best I can explain it. My Facebook page was maxed out at 5K friends and was very active. If I’d only had 50-100 friends, then it might not have felt like I was interacting with a collective.

The feeling that I was interacting with a collective began to feel rather creepy, as you might imagine. I’m glad to be off of Facebook, since I really don’t wish to be assimilated. It’s nice not to feel like there’s an endless stream of other people’s thoughts flowing through my mind all the time. I can hear my own thoughts once again, and they’re a lot more relaxed and coherent.

Facebook creates a false and unsatisfying sense of socializing.

I’m somewhere between an introvert and an extrovert. As a child I was very introverted. In kindergarten I was the kid who played in the sandbox all by himself. I don’t think I was lonely. I just found sand toys more interesting than people.

As I aged, however, I gradually became more extroverted. Partly this was by choice. I pushed myself to develop my social skills and to embrace what I once avoided.

It’s said that you’re an introvert if you recharge your batteries while being alone, and you’re an extrovert if you recharge in the company of others. That metaphor doesn’t seem to work for me though. I prefer balance, usually by taking turns. If I spend a lot of time alone, I feel a strong desire to go out and be social. But after a very social week, I feel the desire to retreat back to my cave and enjoy more solitary time.

Being active on Facebook had the effect of filling my social bucket. But it was essentially a false fill, like drinking salt water instead of fresh water. Instead of providing a real sense of connection that satisfies, it made me think I was out there being social, but I’d still be “hungry” afterwards. Facebook activity could never recharge my batteries in the way that face to face interaction could.

When I dropped Facebook, I began feeling genuinely more social when I’d go out. Even when running errands, I’d notice myself chatting and joking around with people more often. When I was active on Facebook, I wouldn’t do that as much because I had the false sense that I was being social by interacting with my online posse.

Facebook is computer interaction, not human interaction.

The reality of using Facebook is that you’re just typing and viewing insignificant bits of information on a digital device (computer, cell phone, iStuff, etc).

The next time you use such a service, pause for a moment and do a reality check. What are you actually doing? Who’s with you? How is this advancing your life? What if you do this for 20 more years? What do you expect to gain from it?

You can call it social networking, but it’s not really a social experience if you’re actually alone sitting at a computer. Real socialization is face to face.

There’s a tremendous richness to in-person socialization that just doesn’t translate over the Internet, at least not yet.

A ***hug*** isn’t a real hug. A smiley isn’t a real smile. All you’re doing is pushing buttons.

I’ll go so far as to say that Facebook isn’t social networking. It’s anti-social retreating.

If you want to disagree with me about this, you’ll have say it to my face. If you try to tell me off by typing something on a digital device, you’re only proving me right. Evil, I know.

A friend isn’t necessarily a “friend”.

I can be friendly with people from all walks of life, but when it comes to which people are most compatible as my long-term friends, the Facebook pool isn’t a good fit for the kinds of lasting friendships I really wish to cultivate.

The main issue is the age difference. Most of my Facebook friends were in their 20s. I’m sure that’s a big part of the service’s demographic. It’s also a big part of my blog’s readership, and many of my articles are targeted to the needs of that age group. I already have many friends in their 20s, but if I draw too many of my friends from this pool, it comes with a price.

I can relate to what it’s like to be a 20-something these days, so I’m able to be a friend to someone in that age group, but it’s rare that such people are able to be a good friend to me. They simply don’t have the life experience to give the kind of value I gain from a good friendship.

In your 20s it’s common to do a lot of soul-searching and experimenting to figure out what to do with your life. To get the career part of your life going well, you basically have to figure out 4 things: (1) what you can do to earn a good income, (2) what skills and talents you can develop to a high degree, (3) what you enjoy doing, (4) what you can contribute. It takes some effort to figure these out. Then it takes more effort to massage yourself into the area of intersection, such that you can earn a good income doing what you love and what you’re good at, and thereby make a meaningful contribution too. Most of the 20-somethings I know are still struggling to figure this out, so they can’t be of much help to me in working on what lies beyond this.

I like having younger friends. They help me stay young at heart, and they help me keep my thinking from becoming stale. Their needs and concerns provide me with an endless supply of ideas. But I also need older, more experienced friends, especially people in their 40s, 50s, and beyond. I gain so much from their wisdom and knowledge. Having the right balance is key. Otherwise you become socially stagnant, and the sparkle drains from your social life. Instead of appreciating your friends, you start taking them for granted. I noticed I was beginning to fall into this trap last year, so I knew it was time to shuffle the deck and rebalance this part of my life.

The problem with Facebook is that it greatly unbalanced the social part of my life, skewing it in the direction of spending lots of time with people nearly half my age. This dragged my thinking backwards in terms of maturity. When I dropped Facebook, my social life began to rebalance itself automatically. This is causing other positive ripples as well. Many problems are easier to solve when you approach them with a 40-something’s discipline or a 50-something’s patience as opposed to a 20-something’s youthful energy.

Ask yourself what your life would be like if 80-90% of your social interactions were with people roughly half your age. Can you see how that might unbalance your social life?

For many years this has been a challenging part of my life to balance. It took a while to recognize and accept that my online “friends” and my best in-person friends come from different pools and move in different circles.

Most of my Facebook “friends” wouldn’t have been very compatible as in-person friends. We wouldn’t have had enough in common to develop a particularly deep friendship, and the interactions would have been too unbalanced. So it seems odd to refer to them as friends in the same way I’d refer to my in-person friends.

I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t just fill up my social bucket with an endless supply of 20-something friends and expect good results, even if they’re very intelligent, growth-oriented, open-hearted 20-somethings. This kind of imbalance happens by default when I leave too many doors and windows open since the bulk of my online readership is in their 20s. If I allow too many of my typical readers to become my friends, my social life becomes unbalanced and stagnant, even as it maintains the illusion of freshness. It took a long time to recognize that this was happening.

In order to rebalance this part of my life, I’ve had to deliberately close some of those accessible avenues, such that I can spend more time connecting with people who can add serious value to my life and help me keep growing (peers, mentors, etc). I like having some 20-something friends, but I can’t have hundreds of them. So that’s one reason Facebook really had to go — using Facebook was a lame attempt on my part to expect that my peers would come from the same pool as my readers.

Facebook is ruled by addicts.

This is probably obvious, but the Facebook “friends” that you’ll interact with most frequently will tend to be those who are the most addicted. They post more status updates and comments because they spend a lot of time on the service. So you end up giving the most attention to those who are the greatest addicts.

In short, you end up spending the most time interacting with the people who are the worst influences — highly unproductive people who don’t value their time. This can have many adverse effects, such as causing you to become more addicted to the service and to feel the urge to post more often just for the sake of posting.

If your strongest connections on Facebook are the most addicted, how is that going to influence you over time? The closer you become with those people, the more you’ll get sucked into spending more time on the service.

After I left Facebook, I asked myself, Should I really be giving so much attention to the greatest social networking addicts?

While even the biggest addicts can be very intelligent, helpful, and growth-oriented, their addiction tends to sap their ambition, causing them to make little forward progress in life. It should come as no surprise that many of these people are financially stagnant. It’s hard to improve your finances when you devote so much time to non-income generating activities each day.

When I dropped Facebook, I also dropped off the radar of some of the biggest social networking addicts. I’m no longer subject to their influence, which was probably stronger than I’d care to admit. Breaking free of this cycle was a wise choice. I should have done it sooner.

Facebook is lazy socialization.

Social networking makes it easy to become socially lazy. With a few clicks, you can delude yourself into thinking you have an active social life.

But is that the real story? Are you enjoying some intelligent face time with these friends? Or are you merely exchanging witty banter? Do you deeply value these friendships? Are you having the social experiences you desire? Or are you just wasting time clicking and typing and telling yourself you’re being social?

What else could you be doing instead of social networking?

You could go dancing or see a show with your boyfriend or girlfriend. No one special in your life? Wonder why… A person with halfway decent social skills can change that in a day. Has the Internet become your social hiding place? Does the thought of going outside and socializing with strangers make you anxious? If so, you can overcome that weakness with practice.

You could have a nice chat with a wealthy mentor about how to improve your finances. No wealthy friends? Think you’re going to meet them on Facebook?

It’s a good idea to pause and take a look at your social results. Has social networking transformed your life for the better? Has it helped bring empowering relationships, valuable contacts, and intelligent mentors into your life? Or does it leave you drifting in a sea of social drifters?

I found that spending more time on Facebook didn’t produce much value for me socially. I did make some interesting contacts now and then, but it wasn’t worth the time spent.

It’s true that in-person networking is more challenging. If your social skills are weak, you can pretend to be a social butterfly online just by throwing a lot of time at it. But you’re still going to be limited in the long run by your ability to connect with people face to face. Make sure you don’t let your social skills atrophy to the point where you end up spending more and more time alone, vainly trying to feed the illusion that you have a real social life.

Be sure to keep challenging yourself socially. If you only do what’s easy, you’ll grow weaker with each passing year.

Facebook is an expensive way to increase visibility.

I know there’s a great deal of hype about the business value of social networking. Much of that hype is circulated by those who are trying to make money from it. Be wary of taking advice about gold from those who make a living selling picks and shovels.

From a business standpoint, one supposed benefit of social networking is that it can raise your visibility. Raising your visibility is great. If you’re more visible (among the right people), you can attract more business. That part is all good.

But not all visibility-raising methods are the same. If you use Facebook to raise your visibility, it comes with a hefty price. As you raise your visibility, you also increase your accessibility.

For example, if you have a Facebook page, then you also have an inbox. At this time Facebook makes it impossible to disable the inbox. People can email you there. People I’d never met would email me on Facebook each day. Why? Because they could. Facebook made it easy for them to do so. They didn’t need my permission. Facebook would even let non-friends email me whenever they felt like it. Maybe that’s a bug, but that’s how it worked from my perspective.

If you have a Facebook page with a wall on it, then people can post comments on your wall. If you have a fan page, someone can “like” your fan page, spam your wall, and then “unlike” your fan page, and it’s impossible to ban them from repeated abuse. You just have to deal with it.

At low numbers, more accessibility isn’t so bad. Maybe you’d like the chance to communicate with more people. That’s all fine.

At higher numbers, the visibility-accessibility linkage becomes untenable. The more visible you are on Facebook, the more people have access to interact with you in some way, whether it’s by sending you private messages, posting messages on your wall, or inviting you to events and groups. Beyond a certain point, this kind of contact becomes impractical to deal with in any meaningful way.

I like that Facebook may have helped to increase my visibility by introducing people to my work who might otherwise never have learned about it. However, the price tag for that gain in visibility is a corresponding increase in accessibility. That price turned out to be way too high for me. I like helping people, but I can’t serve as a personal friend and therapist to thousands of individuals. That isn’t a sustainable way for me to contribute.

When I dropped Facebook, I breathed a major sigh of relief. In a way I’m still sighing 30 days later. It really is a great relief not to be so accessible anymore. I finally feel like I have the space to think about what I desire to contribute of my own accord instead of feeling overwhelmed with an endless flood of requests from others. The visibility gains that Facebook provides just aren’t worth the price. There are much easier and more effective ways to build visibility that don’t yield an accessibility penalty, such as doing interviews.

What About Twitter?

As for my Twitter account, the jury’s still out, but for now I’m still using it.

Twitter doesn’t create the same accessibility problem because by following zero people there, I’m not forced to have an inbox on the service. Even if I did have an inbox, it wouldn’t be bad because people could only send 140-character messages. But I find it best not to have an inbox there at all, so I never need to worry about people expecting me to reply to their direct messages. A few people apparently consider it poor Twitter etiquette to have thousands of followers and not follow anyone back. I don’t lose any sleep over it.

Occasionally I’ll skim through the public messages that people address to me, especially if I posted a question for feedback purposes, but I normally don’t pay much attention to the @stevepavlina replies since they’re mostly re-tweets of my own stuff. So if you tried to get my attention by publicly posting a message to me on Twitter, there’s a good chance I never saw it.

For now I’m okay using Twitter for posting broadcast-style messages because Twitter doesn’t force upon me the scaling headaches that Facebook does. If I double my Twitter followers, the service doesn’t require me to spend any more time there to keep my account tidy.

I nuked my Linkedin account at the same time I left Facebook. Linkedin is supposed to be a business networking service, and I had about 350 contacts there, but I always found that service utterly useless, so it was a no-brainer to dump it.

Try a 30-Day Facebook Fast

If you have any doubts about your own Facebook usage, I highly recommend you to try a 30-day Facebook fast.

It’s easy to do this because Facebook lets you (temporarily or permanently) deactivate your account without deleting your data. So if you decide you want to go back to using it later, you can always log back in again, and everything can be restored with a few clicks, including your wall, photos, etc.

As for the how-to, all you do is login to your Facebook account, and click Account -> Account Settings. Then at the bottom of that page, click “deactivate.” Follow the instructions from there. This won’t delete your data, but it will take your profile offline. You’ll become invisible on the service. To restore it later, just login again and click a similar link to bring it back.

If you really want to stay in touch with certain people from Facebook who don’t already have an alternate means of contacting you, you can send them a private message before you deactivate your account to let them know how to reach you during your hiatus.

I’m a big advocate of testing. If you’re an active Facebook user, and you go 30 days without it, you’ll gain a much clearer understanding of its role in your life. In my case it was obvious within a few days that the benefits I got from using it weren’t worth the effort, but there were other subtleties I didn’t notice until weeks later.

This is your life. It’s up to you to ensure that you’re getting good value from your online activities. Don’t just go through the motions because you’ve been conditioned by some service to behave a certain way.

As for myself, I’m sure it’s obvious that I have no plans to return to Facebook. Resistance is NOT futile.

 

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