Facebook Exodus – Are We Tired of the New Toy?

In a New York Times Magazine article entitled Facebook Exodus, Virginia Heffernan questions whether Facebook users are losing interest like kids lose interest in a new toy. Heffernan cites the reasons her friends are defecting:

• It makes us too nosy, too focused on other people’s dirt (our “friends”)
• Some fear stalkers
• Some feel their privacy is being compromised
• Some disappear without a word

In addition to this, I would add:

• It takes a lot of time away from real-life interactions
• We remember why we weren’t in touch with those old friends from high school – they wouldn’t even talk to me then!
• People are tired of having more of a relationship with a screen than an actual human
• It encourages others to talk about you in an open forum, which is fine if everyone loves you
• It gives us license to be brazen and overly direct
• We tend to share too much, which can lead to fraud, exploitation and identity theft

Facebook privacy concerns are the issue I am interested in most. A quote in Heffernan’s article by Leif Harmsen sums the privacy issues up perfectly:

“It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.”

Posted in Identity Theft, Social Media by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.

Tags: facebook defection, facebook exodus, facebook privacy