Fed up with Faceboook

LegacyUser

This is not significant when you compare it to some issues on PI but would value some advice. I have been on Facebook a few years now and I find that I just become increasingly frustrated and irritated by it. I am an exceptionally private person and I have in excess of 300 friends on it (all of whom I know) but that's not to say I want to be in contact with some of them anymore or have anything to do with them or have them privy to anything going on in my life. The thing is I am moving abroad in a few months and I think I may regret it if I close my account as it would be a nice way to keep in touch with some of my closest friends. I also am loath to closing it in case photos are tagged of me or what have you when I'm not on the bloody thing anymore!

However I would like to cull quite a few people but because some of these people would have mutual acquaintenaces/friends with me I don't want to cause conflict or send out a nasty signal when in all honesty I'd just like to get rid of a lot of people. I feel some are equally as badly disposed as I am to them and I hate the pretence of it. Any ideas? I've hidden some people and that's fine but has anyone been in this position? There are a couple of ex friends shall we say who I just want to cut out completely but am cringing a bit at the thought of deleting them. It seems confrontational. I also see status updates from people or people posting ridiculous stuff about every single facet of their life "Wow, just been for an amazing number two" or posting endless photos of themselves and it just irritates me!

By the way, I am in my 30s so I am not some teenager - hard and all as that may be to believe.....cringe

I am a friend

I deleted a lot of people and then deactivated myself for a long while. Then people get used to the idea you are not on it anymore and when you get back on you are left with your core friends.

woodchuck

Just do a big cull if you want and don't give it a second thought! If anybody makes a big deal out of it that's just sad on their part :rolleyes: And removing a whole load of people at once makes it obvious that it's nothing personal anyway.

ElleEm

Irritated wrote: »

This is not significant when you compare it to some issues on PI but would value some advice. I have been on Facebook a few years now and I find that I just become increasingly frustrated and irritated by it. I am an exceptionally private person and I have in excess of 300 friends on it (all of whom I know) but that's not to say I want to be in contact with some of them anymore or have anything to do with them or have them privy to anything going on in my life. The thing is I am moving abroad in a few months and I think I may regret it if I close my account as it would be a nice way to keep in touch with some of my closest friends. I also am loath to closing it in case photos are tagged of me or what have you when I'm not on the bloody thing anymore!

However I would like to cull quite a few people but because some of these people would have mutual acquaintenaces/friends with me I don't want to cause conflict or send out a nasty signal when in all honesty I'd just like to get rid of a lot of people. I feel some are equally as badly disposed as I am to them and I hate the pretence of it. Any ideas? I've hidden some people and that's fine but has anyone been in this position? There are a couple of ex friends shall we say who I just want to cut out completely but am cringing a bit at the thought of deleting them. It seems confrontational. I also see status updates from people or people posting ridiculous stuff about every single facet of their life "Wow, just been for an amazing number two" or posting endless photos of themselves and it just irritates me!

By the way, I am in my 30s so I am not some teenager - hard and all as that may be to believe.....cringe

It isn't confrontational at all. I had a falling out with a friend, and just got sick of her BS, so I said nothing and just deleted her. I didn't need the drama of why, etc. In that case, it took a month for her to notice, and she confronted me about it.

Most people will never notice that you have deleted them, and if you only keep in contact via Facebook, are they real friends anyway?

I noticed a few of my old school friends added me years ago and they have subsequently deleted me- it's no big deal. We're not friends, and we have nothing in common. No big deal!

I delete people quite often. If I haven't spoken to someone for ages or get bored of their rubbish on FB I delete.

Keep your account open, but use it for people who you are ACTUAL friends with.

pixie80

I have to agree that contance news feeds of people and things you're just not interested is really annoying. I generally hide all that stuff. I remember being "unfriended" by someone at one point and it did annoy me at the time, but now it doesn't bother me in the slightest.
I keep my friends list limited to those I care about and see on a regular basis and then those i met while travelling who I like to keep in touch with.

If you want to close it then do. If you are going abroad then you could open a new account and keep the friends list limited to those you want to keep in contact with. It wasn't till I went away that I really began to use facebook, and my family and friend loved how I was keeping them up dated on what I was doing when away.

missbelle

So true what ElleEm says! I find ex-school friends adding me as a friend, I think more so to have a nosey at what I'm at/who I'm with etc etc. I have my profile private to non-friends, but people can find out so much about you from your Facebook page,it's ridiculous :eek:
I do a friends cleanout every so often, if I haven't spoken to them since we became friends, or if we wouldn't chat when we meet in person, then what's the point?
I'm very tempted at times to deactivate the profile, but my nosiness gets the better of me as mentioned, some people don't even notice when someone deletes them!!

Acoshla

Just delete them, as mentioned most people will never even notice. I've deleted plenty of people and see them again afterwards, I have about 100 friends on fb because I like to keep it to just close friends and family. I do also have some people on my custom privacy list, people that for one reason or another I can't delete or had to add (like boyfriend's relatives that I might not want seeing everything), I make it so they can't see certain bits like photos, or statuses etc. Ultimately those people will probably be deleted after a certain grace period from when they added me But in the meantime it's good halfway house.

tenchi-fan

set up lists and change your privacy settings.

LegacyUser

I think FB is the spawn of the devil. I absolutely hate what it is, what it has become and what it has caused people to do and become. I heard today some friend of the family has changed his "status". I wasn't interested, I didn't have to be told and the change was only of interest to the two people involved.

I don't like how FB has changed the definition of the word "friend". I don't like how it has changed the definition of the word "like".

OP, don't be afraid to move away from it. If it's this upsetting then you do not need it. Your real friends will understand.

sam34

a) how in the name of god can you describe yourself as "exceptionally private" when you have >300 "friends" on Facebook??

b) it's very easy keep in contact with real friends without using Facebook. I have friends in America, Canada, Australia , New Zealand and England and we manage to stay in regular contact just fine, without Facebook or twitter. we email, text, skype and use viber. sometimes we write old fashioned letters.


if the fb account is causing you such angst and taking up so much headspace as your post indicated, then just delete the damn thing.

The Lovely Muffin

Just delete those people OP. It's just Facebook, it's not important.

As Sam34 says, you don't need to have Facebook to keep in contact, there email, Skype, texting, Viber, letters, etc to keep constant contact.

Personally I have less than 100 people on my Facebook, I recently deleted a load of people, nothing personal, just people I am no longer in contact with. If those people have a problem with it, then it's their problem.

And frankly, if someone takes Facebook seriously enough to speak to you about deleting them, then they are sad individuals. Facebook is just a website, it's not important.

Roisy7

Delete the ex-friends. Hide the people who put over-dramatic, oversharing statuses... (Hover the cursor over the right hand corner of their status, a little down arrow should appear, and you can click "hide all posts from X")

I had a big falling out with a friend who didn't talk to me for a year in person, but had no hesitation liking or commenting on my statuses. I deleted them and immediately felt so much better. Facebook is much more enjoyable now that I don't have to look at posts by people I don't like and caused so much crap in my life.

OP, if they're ex-friends there's no need to worry about being confrontational, fb is quite discreet in that most people don't realise they've been deleted for months sometimes! It's not real life

Best of luck with the move abroad

jester77

You should have a look at the research done by Prof. Robin Dunbar about the number of trusted relationships a person will maintain throughout their lifetime. It shows that people will have around 5 best friends, 15 good friends, 50 close friends and family, and around a total of 150 friends overall. Now if you were to apply that to your list of friends you could easily cut it in half.

Facebook allows you to group people into lists. Set up lists for friends, family, acquaintances, etc. and then under privacy settings and account settings, set up which list can see what.

livinsane

If you are afraid to delete people, just go into your friend list and appoint anyone you choose to "Restricted". This means they can only see the posts and info you set as "public". Ye will still appear on each other's friend list but they wont see most of the stuff you put up.

seriously?????

just close your account!
whats the problem?
i have never had a facebook account, i never will. amazingly i managed to stay in touch with my brother and best friend while they lived in australia for a few years without ever using facebook! shocking eh?

just delete it, there are plenty of ways of staying in touch with people.

and if anyone asks (which they always do!) why im not on it, i just tell them that im not so insecure i need to advertise my life on the internet, and i prefer real life friends.

Sugarlumps

Totally agree with the above poster, just delete your account you’ll feel a lot better for it. I had an account and deleting it was the best decision ever.

Oryx

Ive mentioned here before that I deleted my fb account about 18 months ago, for the same reasons you describe, frustration and annoyance at the 'politics' of friendships there, and the number of random friends I hardly knew. I liked the photosharing and keeping in touch with distant friends but that was it.

It was hard to be offline at first, but to be honest Ive always been relieved I no longer have an account, with all the annoying stuff that goes with it. Life can be lived without facebook!

Another friend of mine keeps her friends to 50, total. If she goes over that, she has a cull. That could work for you too.

D

i created an acquaintance list where every one I know but isn't a friend is set to. It shares nothing.
I know another person that if they get a friend request from someone they don't really know then they accept it and immediately delete the friend. the friend gets the acceptance message but just thinks that you have very high privacy settings.

Queen-Mise

How I dealt with that situation OP - I put a comment up saying I was closing my FB account. A few days later - I started removing people as friends BUT I also blocked them. This meant I was invisible to them on FB - if they searched for me or were looking at mutual friend's friends list my name wouldn't come up.

Blocking people is so much better than just removing them as a friend. And the people who keep putting up the stupid posts - block their posts, don't have to worry about hurt feelings... They are still a friend but you don't see their sh*te.

FB is peculiar that way - I like it for because I can keep in contact with people in different countries & then some of my friends have great links etc. It is working out a way to filter out the crap from it though.

shellyboo

Good lord, just delete your account. If your friends are really your friends, you'll keep in touch with them with or without Facebook. People were emigrating and maintaining friendships before Mark Zuckerberg was a twinkle in his mother's eye, I'm sure you can manage it.