Why I Permanently Deleted Facebook – A Year Later

The Effects of Permanently Deleting Facebook
The Effects of Permanently Deleting Facebook

Did you, like me, permanently delete your Facebook account last year? Why did you do it?

I asked myself this very question a few days ago. To my analytical yet generous mind, there is a distribution of reasoning.

These range from ideological to practical. From concerns of privacy to a desire to create free time to reallocate toward my updated medium-term goals, like learning to code at an amateur level and to grasp the history of money.

Since I subscribe to theories of mimetic desire, part of me feels as though I quit Facebook because other people were doing it, which in itself is not always by itself a good reason for doing anything (if you’ll allow me to understate my point).

I didn’t pause or suspend or disable my account: I permanently deleted it. Part of me feels that I permanently deleted it to prove to myself that I could. (When I played online poker, I occasionally entertained folding pocket aces pre-flop to demonstrate I could make a bad play, to illustrate that I–whatever I is–was in charge.)

A year later, what are the Pros and Cons of the decision?

Pros of Leaving Facebook Behind

More Free Time:
I do have additional time each day which I’ve reallocated to other activities. Note: This was part of my digital minimalism kick–to use digital technologies selectively, in other words to choose those which amplify my velocity toward my goals.

More Attention:
Understanding one’s conscious attention is a detailed and complicated topic. To my way of thinking, understanding how one’s attention works is a private and personal activity. A journey that you have to take on your own. Even useful meditation apps like Waking Up will only get you part of the way.

Seeing the Forest and the Trees:
Take a moment to notice how this sentence affects you. That sentence wasn’t so emotionally resonant. Neither was that one. So what?, you might reactively ask. But that is the point. (For one thing, I’ve learned to read better…and to notice less good writing and better writing.) 

“Slowing down” in appropriate ways lets me see the forest and the trees. It also lets me examine products and services and how those human-product or human-service interactions engage my attention. There’s a layer of meta-cognition here which is difficult to appreciate, but rewarding. In Octalysis Prime, we are doing our best to help our members notice how the activity or game loops they create for their players, members, and customers acknowledge the human there.

Cons of Leaving Facebook — And Trying to Return

The Value of Your Network:
Last night at a holiday party, I was where I grew up. Gabon, Indonesia, China, USA. Most of the friends and contacts I made in those places were filed in Facebook. Gone are the digital branches connecting me with those people. (It is hard, but not impossible, to regrow them. Some people have found me again, and me them.)

Managing Facebook Groups:
I want to manage a Facebook Group for work–Octalysis Explorers–which is the largest gamification group on Facebook. In one sense, it is the largest base (outside our mailing list of 30k+) of people who we as a company enjoy talking and hanging out with. Since I’m the Community Manager for Octalysis Prime, it would be useful to understand who those people are too, but I haven’t been able to get back on Facebook, at least not within Facebook’s standard rules.

For example, I recently added a new user–first name “Octalysis” last name “Prime”– and included my personal details, birthday, email, and phone number.

After using Facebook for about 30 minutes, I was asked to upload a picture “with a face” at which time I was locked out of Facebook. A few days later, I’m still not allowed on.

I guess we should acknowledge that Facebook is honoring its commitment to permanently delete my account with them.

What services have you canceled?

What services have you canceled, vowing to never return, but eventually came back?

What was the return like?

Did the service welcome you back? Did they make it easy to jump back in? Hard?

How did it make you feel?

I also left behind Quora, which was one of my favorite social sites, where I had a reasonable following and was a top writer in some topics…in different but meaningful ways, that was a harder decision than leaving Facebook.

How A Game Helps Disadvantaged Women and Children Around the World

Image of a girl supported by the Half the Sky MovementMany women and children in developing countries have very limited opportunities to shape their futures. Their are countless tragic stories of abuse, intolerance, oppression, and suffering that because of their diminished voice go unnoticed by the rest of the world. Half the Sky Movement is a transmedia initiative that was created to shed light on the struggles of mothers, young girls and their families in countries like Cambodia, Kenya, India, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan. The project has received the support of celebrities like Diana Lane, America Ferrara and Olivia Wilde. What makes this initiative so appealing and powerful is how it combines different forms of media to share stories, raise awareness, and find solutions to a host of serious gender-based injustices.

Why the Half the Sky Movement Exists

Women in many parts of the world face specific abuse and crimes that continue to impact the daily lives of them and their children. In some of the countries mentioned previously, women often do not have equitable opportunities for real education nor security in a stable economic future- Women perform two thirds of the world’s total working hours but only earn 10% of wages. Statistics on school dropout rates are also dismal (according to Half the Sky, 1 out of every 5 primary school-age girls around the globe are not in school) This ultimately contributes to a cycle of illiteracy and poor career opportunities.

Without access to proper medical care, women often face a high risk of dying from complications related to pregnancy. Women are also victims to severe gender-based crimes such as rape and other forms of social, mental, and physical abuse. The exploitation of women as prostitutes by sex trafficking rings continues to be a growing global problem and in many cases, the laws in their countries fail to protect them from harm and often work against their interests.

Without resources and opportunities to change their own circumstances, the direct and indirect oppression of women continues to be a systematic and cyclical gross injustice.

To combat this and transform lives, The Half the Sky Movement aims to cut “… across platforms to ignite the change needed to put an end to the oppression of women and girls worldwide, the defining issue of our time (Half the Sky Movement).”

So how do they do this?

Continue reading How A Game Helps Disadvantaged Women and Children Around the World

Hassle Free Steps On How To Setup Pinterest For Your Business

As Pinterest continues to grow in business relevance, a common question is how to setup Pinterest for your business. While a relatively easy process, businesses can benefit from following our easy, hassle free steps on how to setup and how to begin ‘pinning’ on your businesses Pinterest page.

1. Request an Invite

The first step to starting out on Pinterest is to ask for an account invitation.


Invitation waits vary, but most users will receive an invite within the first 24 hours if not sooner. While you wait, you can always explore others pins 🙂 Continue reading Hassle Free Steps On How To Setup Pinterest For Your Business

4 Common Social Media Mistakes Businesses Make

Learning to swim can be a fun and exciting experience. From learning the basics of kicking to the different types of strokes, becoming an expert is not an overnight matter. On the other hand, not all of us learn how to swim through a set process. For some, learning to swim involved being dropped into a pool (or in some cases a large body of water) and ‘improvising.’ Much like the latter, this is how many businesses learn how about social media.

In what can be best described as a trial and error style marketing approach, businesses that jump into the ‘social media’ pool, can find themselves looking for a life vest if they aren’t careful. To help businesses avoid making the same mistakes that others make, we’ve come up with 4 Common Social Media Mistakes Businesses Make: Continue reading 4 Common Social Media Mistakes Businesses Make

Top 4 Reasons Why Retailers Should Use Social Media

Retail-store-complex

Traditional marketing for retailers involved print ads in magazines and newspaper spreads, television ad spots, billboards, and signage within retail centers. Today though, the word ‘traditional’ is slowly starting to become obsolete as the rise of digital and social media grows.

In a recent 2012 joint research project by Shop.orgcomScore, and The Partnering Group, entitled the 2012 Social and Mobile Commerce study, the role of social media and the way it plays into consumers behaviors and buying decisions is apparent by the results which we will discuss below.

To help understand the case study fore mentioned, we have related them to the Top 4 Reasons Why Retailers Should Use Social Media:

1. Don’t ignore your consumers

According to the study, 2 out of 5 online consumers follow retailers through one or more social networking sites. As a retailer, being in front of the consumer at every possible opportunity is key. In the case of social media, the opportunity is huge. With communities that reach into the high millions, retailers that take advantage of the numbers will be able to tap into the consumer that is listening and looking. Continue reading Top 4 Reasons Why Retailers Should Use Social Media

10 Common Social Media Questions from Small Business Owners, Part 2

10 Common Social Media Questions from Small Business Owners, Part 2

In the first part of our two part segment on the 10 Common Social Media Questions from Small Business Owners, we looked at questions such as the following:

  • Facebook, Twitter, or Both?
  • How many Facebook fans or Twitter followers is a good number?
  • Should I reply to all posts from Facebook/Twitter users?
  • Do I need to hire someone to manage my social media presence?
  • How do I get people to find my business?

In the second part, we take a closer look at the basics of social media including questions regarding blogging as well as platforms like Pinterest. Continue reading 10 Common Social Media Questions from Small Business Owners, Part 2

Video Interview: Local marketing with Carmen Sognonvi

Interview details:

About Carmen:

Carmen Sognonvi is co-owner and general manager of Urban Martial Arts in Brooklyn, NY.  Her views on local business and entrepreneurship have been featured in Fox Business, Inc.com, and Crain’s New York Business.  You can reach her at (646) 504-4092 or carmen AT carmensognonvi.com.

Carmen is such a terrific person and professional.  I love that she not only talks the talk on her blog, but she walks the walk as well because she’s a local business owner.  In her interview, Carmen gives concrete tips that a local business can utilize to use social media to drive traffic and retention.  If there’s one thing I learned during the interview, it’s that online content is the most important asset that a business owner can focus on for the web.  Without content, there is no social presence.

Enjoy the video!

Continue reading Video Interview: Local marketing with Carmen Sognonvi