I never let my "friends list" get out of hand on Facebook. I didn't 'friend' people I didn't know in real life, I tried not to friend people at the office, and after awhile, I stayed away from accepting friend requests from other people's kids.
When I deleted by profile, I had about 150 people on my friends list - people I went to high school or college with, people I knew socially, people I saw on a regular basis, my family and my 'boyfriend's' family.
Somehow, his mother was always getting offended by things I posted (I tried not to post much overtley political stuff, because I really hated reading political posts by other people). If I posted a relationship article, he would roll right past it, but his mother would ask him what was wrong. (You know, don't come to me and don't assume it has nothing to do with you....) My cousin was always complaining about her marriage and her horrible life (she has a good job, a home, a car, a supportive extended family, and she married an asshole.) One aunt is on one side of the political spectrum, an uncle is on the other. So I am not friends with both of them (mostly because I don't want to read dear uncle's hate-rants any more than anyone else on the planet does). I'm sure most families are the same way as mine.
It's been about two weeks. Not one person has asked me where I have been - I was posting 3-5 times a day because I work online and had the habit of clicking 'share' on interesting articles or sharing cool things that clients are up to. Not one person out of 156 has noticed that my posts have disappeared.
I told one person - because she was talking about tagging me in a video - that I had deleted my profile. I told a friend who has a tendency to send me a Facebook message that she needed to text me instead.
I haven't told anyone else.
I'm curious to see how long it takes to hear from someone who cared enough about what I was posting -- or cares enough to notice that I'm not posting.
I'm noticing that the entire internet is becoming a "sign in with your Facebook" account universe.
And, I'm going through Spotify withdrawls because of that.
Most significantly, I've noticed is that some people just assume that you are seeing everything happening in their lives on Facebook, so there is no need for them to tell you about it. There's no need for any face to face, person to person conversation, because they are posting their lives on Facebook for the whole world to see, and that is so much easier than cultivating a relationship with an actual human being. There's no need to pick up the telephone or have lunch with someone because - hey, if it's important, it's on my Facebook page.
It makes those science fiction movies we grew up on seem less strange when you consider that people would rather scroll through their Facebook feed than have a normal conversation.
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