I Deactivated My Facebook Account

I opened a Facebook account a few months ago — mostly because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

I never really got into it, however. I’m too busy, and really, if you want my opinion, Facebook is meant for younger people who seem to live their lives online.

I’ve also worked very hard this last year to get OFF the computer and out into the real world. I’m much better for it, too. I’ve lost weight, I’ve reduced my stress level, and I’ve actually made some real friends.

I also found Facebook very strange. For the uninitiated, Facebook has “feeds.” Any time you do some sort of action, such as adding a friend to your list or updating your profile, Facebook sends out a “feed” to all your friends letting them know you’ve taken this action.

Through Facebook, you can let all your friends know what you’re doing at any given time.

I found myself asking, why would anyone want to know what I’m doing – and why do I want to know what other people are doing? That’s not networking — that’s TMI (too much information).

Facebook recently unveiled its new advertising program. Basically, actions you take outside of Facebook can now be brought into Facebook. For example, if you rent a movie from Blockbuster online, you can let all your Facebook friends know which movie you rented.

You can find a ton of posts about the new program — here are just a few (chosen from my biased perspective):

Jeffrey Eisenberg, of Grokdotcom, has a great post explaining the program’s “opt-out” policy — and why you should be scared. Very scared.

Gigaom lists the companies which have partnered with Facebook.

And MoveOn has “slammed Facebook” for its controversial advertising program, according to a news article at CIO Today. 

Quite frankly, this new program scares me to death. I don’t want people knowing what I’m doing in my offtime, and I certainly don’t want companies trading that level of information about me — in real time.

So I deactivated my account.

According to Michelle Manafy, in her eContent “Edit This” column, my unease, given my age, is par for the course. Young content users, she writes, 

. . . willingly trade privacy for information, a cost too dear for many from previous generations. . . . Today, people increasingly live lives in the public eye — from exposing their seamy underbellies on talk shows or reality TV to letting it all hang out on MySpace or YouTube. Twenty-somethings share it all — and bare it all — online, so without a doubt, they will be willing to ante up a good amount of personal information to keep content freely flowing.

What do you think? Are you a Facebook addict? Do you have a Facebook account? What do you think about their new advertising policy? Does it bother you? Why or why not?