UN-friend day on Facebook

Today is the unofficial day to delete friends from facebook. Don't feel bad, they probably aren't really your friends, and you may have never even met them. Of course deleting friends isn't as good as just deleting your account. Here's the article about this. Today is Defriend Day (On Facebook)


Colleges (I know for sure), law enforcement, government agencies and employees can access your 'private' accounts and use the information as they wish. I doubt they use it to our benefit.

I just can't understand why anyone has facebook. I know one of the better arguments is to 'connect' with their family. I think it just makes in-person get togethers with your family less frequent. There are other ways, besides creating a public website, to share photos, like e-mail.

Two, I just don't get how people spend so much time on facebook. They spend more time 'doing' facebook than they do studying. It's one thing to spend time on the internet, such as researching conspiracies or learning about medical conditions, the weather etc., but there is benefit to learning about important stuff, rather than knowing that your 'friend' is headed to work or had pizza today.

If your still on Facebook (surprised you're on ATS), just Delete your account here if your ready.

reply to post by BenIndaSun


I am on facebook maybe 10 minutes a day. I have friends from all over the world. I like to see new pictures of them and I like to hear from them. I am not friends with anyone who is not actually my friend. And I don't use my real name.

I think it's convenient to connect with a big group of friends, when yous are all over the globe.

But I agree, people spend too much time and post incriminating things up there on a regular basis.

reply to post by BenIndaSun


THE PROBLEM IS, they wont delete your account, they keep your personal information on file forever!!
If you want to delete your account for good, you have to write them a letter.....and even then all you can do is hope they actuallu deleted it, yeah right!

reply to post by RustyShakleford92


No "rusty shackleford" !...I never would have thought you didn't use your real name. I'm kidding, I used to watch King of the Hill.

I know idiots that have their cell phone and apartment number listed so that their 800 friends can see it. Unbelievable. I don't know anyone across the globe, so i can't say I wouldn't have one if that were the case, although I probably wouldn't.

Facebook has become the default way of maintaining relationships with fellow human beings, which is quite sad I believe. They call it social networking when in fact it is inherently anti-social. Calling something "social" when you need not be in the vicinity of another living thing is a farce of epic proportions. The word "friend" now describes someone who you don't speak to, who you don't hang out with, who means as much to you as someone who you do not know, also known as a "stranger". Facebook degrades relationships. You need not send someone a birthday card, or call them, because a simple posting on their wall suffices. And don't even tell me Facebook's games are social in any sense. A message informing me that someone needs my help to defeat a dragon is not social, especially when "help" means clicking a button and you are informed of this hours after that person was logged on. Facebook is telephone tag to the extreme. The entire site thrives on missed connections, forcing you to check Facebook to see if anyone has said anything about anything you've posted or said, as some sort of verification that your musings mean something to somebody, in the form of a "like".

I am once again on Facebook as a means for people to remember that I exist. Social interaction has been replaced by it, and not being on Facebook has unfortunately become a hinderance. People are more prone to check their Facebook page then picking up the phone it seems. So no matter how far I wish to remove myself from this cult of sit-ins viewing photos and text on a visual screen, it has become so deeply ingrained into the way a human being functions that I am the anti-social one for wanting to interact on a more personal level. "Unfriending" someone actually hurts feelings, if they can even tell you did such a thing.

What the hell is wrong with people?

Originally posted by BenIndaSun
Colleges (I know for sure), law enforcement, government agencies and employees can access your 'private' accounts

That's not completely accurate. It all depends on your privacy settings. NO ONE can access this information unless you allow them too in your privacy settings. My privacy settings are cranked to the MAX on FB. If you aren't on my friend list you can't see squat in my profile, not even my name. All of those you've listed fall into that category. Colleges and Employers (potential or otherwise) can NOT access my data unless I allow them to. Unless I friend them Law Enforcement and Government Agencies can NOT access my profile without due process. I don't Friend coworkers or anyone from my office, not even clients. There's a very rigid line between work and my FB account and nothing crosses it.

Does FB have some privacy issues? I'm sure they do. Do they play sneaky games with the privacy settings and trick people into making parts or all of their profile public for various marketing reasons? You bet your arse they do. But if you stay on top of these as they come out instead of listening to the anti-facebook fear mongering and lock it down immediately you're good until the next time someone at FB gets a wild hair up their arse.

I have heard from so many young college kids on how disappointed they are in the shallow friendships they find on facebook. They get the impression the kids they went to high school with - their friends from home have changed and become shallow now that they are away at college.

I have to explain that real contact with our friends is the only way to produce meaningful relationships with others. It's a strange realm of confusion to me because I am older and lived before social media replaced many people's real time social lives.