Having closed down my presence on Facebook last spring on the occasion of their IPO, I have observed the following phenomena:
- My presence is not missed, my absence unnoticed.
- I have not missed any significant milestones or events and don’t feel guilted into sending “happy birthday!” greetings to some faintly remembered account executive at a digital b2b lead gen agency I met at a conference in 2008.
- I miss being able to lurk on the profiles of local criminals since running the names of local miscreants published in the court reports and police logs was a lot of fun, especially drunk home invaders with four prior DUI’s who list “PARTYING!” as one of their favorite Facebook activities.
- I use Google+ more
- I cheated and created a very generic John Smith account so I can do work research for clients when Facebook is concerned.
I still think Facebook is a pig on ice destined for the dustbin where Prodigy, AOL and CompuServe wound up.