Monday, May 17, 2010

How to Quit Facebook Without Actually Quitting Facebook

With all the privacy issues surrounding Facebook, many people are considering quitting the site altogether. If you're not ready to take it that far, here's how to avoid the privacy breaches without completely deleting your account and losing touch with your friends.













Photo by Ludovic Berton.


Should I Quit Facebook Altogether?
We've all had that one friend who deactivated his/her Facebook and was never seen again, because no one could establish contact. As if the telephone, email, and IM were never invented, many people are at a loss as to how to contact you if your Facebook isn't an easy click away. Even if the situation isn't quite that dire, Facebook is still how a lot of people keep connected, and severing that connection completely is a big deal.

But now, privacy-minded folks have many legitimate reasons you should quit Facebook (or reasons you should but can't go through with it), the same thing is on everyone's mind: Is the grief of quitting worth avoiding future privacy breaches?

The Less Extreme Alternative
Luckily, there is another, more middle-of-the-road option. That's not to say this isn't still extreme—this isn't for the faint of heart. It isn't a tutorial about how to change your privacy settings. This is a tutorial on how to create the most minimalist Facebook profile possible, with as little information on yourself as possible, to be used only for communication between you and your friends. You won't be able to do much on the site; you probably won't even visit the site that often. This is not for people who want to continue using Facebook; it is for the people who are ready to up and quit tomorrow, but don't want to miss out on the next party just because they care about their privacy. So if you're really ready to give up wall posts, comments, Farmville, and fan pages, here's how to proceed without falling off the face of the Earth.

Continue reading the full article at LifeHacker by Whitson Gordon

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