Today I deactivated my Facebook account. I did it for a number of reasons.

Ever since I joined I was always kind of leery that the information that I posted there didn't seem like it was mine. I didn't want to get to the point where I was posting pictures of my daughter with some entity besides me owning the rights to distribute her pictures any way that they choose.

I was also getting to the point where the service had run its course. Yeah it was fun to post status messages and links there, but I can do the same thing at Twitter in an easier UI. I think the quizzes and applications also get kind of grating after a while.

I hope I don't upset some of my friends from high school and college, but I also went through both a friend purge and a wall purge before I deactivated my account. I did that as a security measure on the off chance one of my old friends tried to contact me via the wall and my work colleagues potentially see all this stuff I'd never respond to.

I was also getting to the phase where I had already met up with most if not all of my close acquaintances over the years. While it was nice to see what the friends were up to, I know that I'll never reconnect with many of them in real life. Our circles just go in different paths now. I know it is rather harsh and maybe even egocentric, but the people who took the time to get my email address are the ones that I will continue a relationship with.

Another thing, the recent friend requests were from people I either never talked to in high school or college, or that I maybe had one conversation with. Those people I never had a need to add. Facebook isn't a faux friend race.

I probably would have done a full deletion of my account if I didn't have some past work colleagues still online. If one day I need to contact them, I'll probably reactivate my account. In the meantime I am glad to have broken a tie to something that was taking much more time than it should have. More time and effort to put to my daughter when she comes. :)