Good-Bye Facebook :-(

The ominous warning email from Facebook came almost instantly with the subject title "You have deactivated your Facebook account!" With that, I finally bid adieu to a 3-month stint with Facebook (or "FB," as known by hardcore Facebook addicts)....

I felt as if a burden has lifted from my shoulders. No more annoying "add friend" requests from strange guys in East Timor who want to "connect" with me... No more hourly updates on the health status of everyone's FarmVille animals. No more "let's catch-up" messages from long lost friends that you did not lose touch by accident.  To quote comedienne Wanda Sykes, who shares my dislike for FB: "If I didn't want to talk to you in fifth grade, what makes you think I want to talk to you now?" ehehehe so true...

FarmVille, a popular Facebook app

Oh yes, this also means no more meaningless newsfeed alerts from my FB "friends" (I use this term loosely here) regarding their latest bipolar mood swings, or about how much they hate their jobs. And last, but not least, no more postings on my FB "wall" from distant relatives berating me publicly for not keeping in touch by calling me by my adolescent nickname....ick!!!

The problem with Facebook is that it's very intrusive. The geniuses at FB assumed that you want to re-connect with everyone that you've ever emailed to, and it doesn't stop until you've "friend" them all. Remember those "reply all" emails that you didn't pay much attention to who's on that list? Well, Facebook thinks that because you've sent anyone an email, you must really care about every minute detail of their lives. Every time you log on to FB, it searches your contact list and picks out a handful of your email buddies who have a FB account and encourages you to "friend" them. And of course, it also tells them that you now have an account and they should "friend" you as well.

Speaking about email, some have written that one day Facebook and Twitter will replace email as the dominant form of communication. This means that in the future, you might learn that your girlfriend hates you for forgetting her birthday about the same time as the rest of the FB community. I don't know about you, but I'd like to learn of my screw-ups in a more private manner. And yes, those friendly wall postings on other girls' homepage will come back to haunt you once your girlfriend decides you've crossed the line.

Zynga Poker allows Facebook users to play against each other online, using fake chips.

What I've noticed is that FB and other social networking sites seem to want to steer us away from privacy and ass-u-me that you want an audience for everything that you do. Well...I can see celebs or commercial firms using social networking as a tool to draw in new customers or fans, or to announce upcoming events. But to the average Joe Schmo, trust me when I tell you that nobody really cares if you've just added a Lop Eared Bunny to your FarmVille animal collection, unless your friends are all pre-teens.

This doesn't mean that I'm anti-social or that I'm oblivious to the fact that FB is very popular. I know a niece (let's call her Trúc Hà) who spends every night playing Zynga Poker on Facebook with her friends until the wee hours in the morning, and dear Yenli who wants to start a virtual pillow fight with all her classmates everytime she logs on. And I'm all for that (especially for Trúc Hà to build her real life poker skills), but somehow Facebook doesn't excite me.

That is not to say I'm against social networking sites. I have a Multiply account for that purpose and found Multiply useful in scheduling rehearsal practices, sharing music sheets, photos, and videos with my Thân Hữu band-mates. It would seem that Multiply caters to the grown-up crowd while Facebook caters to a much younger community. Perhaps that's why we have choices.

Multiply, a social-networking site for grown-ups

All in all, I'm glad I got rid of Facebook. Now I know why my employer blocks access to it (but doesn't block Multiply) as I wouldn't want my analysts to waste their time tending their fake FarmVille crops and bunnies. I recently read that it's difficult to access FB back home in Vietnam due to some governmental blocking. Perhaps it's nothing political, may be...just may be, they think that it's a waste of time? Ouch...

Duy Hân

January 2010

Duy Hân is an Associate Supervisor in the advertising department of a large financial organization. He earned his B.S. from the University of Maryland and is an MBA graduate. Duy Hân lives in the Washington DC area and he has a beagle named Alaska that likes to take long walks on the beach. He can be reached at AskDuyHan@gmail.com