Oddverse.com

An antisocial network

I've been neglecting you, I know. I've been away, flirting with Facebook and making a tit of myself on Twitter. I've been thrusting myself manfully in to Web 2.0 (or is it web 2.5 yet?) and forgetting about the little people. Forgetting about myself.

Yes, I have been away. I've been running a farm, you see. I've been building empires. I've been doing all sorts of stuff and nonsense, enjoying looking at photos of friends, and friends of friends. And, doubtless, friends of friends of friends.

I've spent endless hours tweaking my profiles, making sure I could be found by people I wanted to find me, ignored by people who I want to hide from. I've been deep into the guts of facebook, learning her ways, playing with her. And then I've gone and planted more crops and life has been suddenly good again.

I know how Facebook sucked me in. I knew it even as I let it happen. I thought I would be stuck in there forever.

But then Facebook started getting... well, everywhere. Sites I used to go to started begging me to log in with Facebook until it got to the point where I was tempted, just to make the site half-usable. But I didn't. I just stopped going.

Then there are other sites with Facebook comments and other material embedded in to them. I've lost track of the number of times when I load up a page, read it, and click on a link only to find that between my decision to click on the link and the finger press being registered by my computer, the Facebook content has finally loaded and I end up somewhere unexpected.

But mainly it's the sheer amount of time I have ended up spending Facebook games. Time that could be spent doing something less inane - even if it is just playing other games, which is what seems to happen.

Because, yes, I have abandoned Facebook.

On Sunday, I carefully blocked my favoured applications, and left just the bones of Facebook in place. I'm still on there, and I can go back any time I want.

But since Sunday, I haven't wanted to. No. Urge. At. All. Who knew it would be this easy to go cold turkey?

I'm not getting rid of facebook completely - it does have some uses - but my usage has dropped dramatically and I find myself feeling liberated as a result.

Hello.