Bucking the Facebook Deletion Trend

So I’ve seen a number of the techie folks writing about how they’re removing their Facebook profiles, due to various policies of the Facebook team, or the lack of stability in some of the features, etc. I can’t say that I agree with everything the Facebook folks do, nor am I in love with all the games and other features of the service, but this past weekend was a great example of why I’m most definitely not giving up on it.

I’m not walking away from the place where dozens of my friends and family got to be part of my birthday celebration, even though the wife and I were traveling. The place where I got to watch video of my 4 year old niece sing “Happy Birthday” to me, and the place where I learned my cousin gave birth to a little baby girl, who I will share a birthday with from now on.

Over the last couple of years of using Facebook, I’ve gotten to know coworkers better, learned about the adult lives of kids I grew up with, gotten back in touch with extended family that I had done a crummy job with keeping in touch with over the years, and connected with various folks that I’ve only known online.

Like all social networking tools, it’s not the technology and it’s not the policies, it’s the people. I want to keep up with the people I’m connected to on Facebook, and the technology makes it easier to do exactly that. Removing my profile would hurt me a whole lot more than it will hurt Mark Zuckerberg.

You might feel differently, you might not be getting the value I get from it, or you might be able to get the same value with another tool, and that’s fine. We all have to make our own decisions, and far be it for me to try and decide how much value you are getting from your Facebook connections, but do take a minute to think about whether those contacts are maybe more important than a little annoyance about policy and procedure.

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