I’m a freelance writer and my publishers want me to have a Facebook presence for promotional reasons.

Do you mean your employer required you to have a FB account?

There are ways to use Facebook and keep much of your activity private, but is it worth it? I don’t think so. I had to go back on Facebook for work reasons, but, if it weren’t for that, I probably would stay away.

The internet is replacing relationships and friendships in a way that is definitely not healthy for those who cannot discipline themselves to 5 or 10 minutes per day. And i am one of those. It has sucked my life away and i know it. I want more out of life than this.

One more thing. What’s up with the “timeline” thing? Why is FB going public? How did they make so much money when i haven’t paid them one dime? I do not like the fact that my personal information is made available to so many. I used to play those useless time-wasters like Farmtown, Farmville, Petville, Cafeworld, etc, etc, etc, but deleted all of them a long time ago. I’ve also long ago set privacy settings to “friends only”. But is it enough?

When i got a ‘friend’ request from my employer, that’s when i began thinking of quitting. I blocked them. My personal life is my personal life. They aren’t entitled to know me in that way. I keep my professional distance.

The most appalling reason to quit is due to the most recent murders that took place in Tennessee. A girl named Jenelle Potter was defriended by a couple. Her dad got mad about it, took a friend with him and MURDERED the couple in their own home. The woman was holding her 8 month old baby at the time, according to reports.

Yes i know this is an extreme example. But i’ve even found myself getting angry if my post wasn’t liked by certain people. That is plenty of reason to quit right there. Sorry i rambled on so much. I’ve been thinking about this for a long long time.

FB provides ways to limit what ends up on a person’s wall. Don’t like the games and other apps? Disable them from your account! Don’t want to see friends’ game scores? Just hide them and they will never show up on your wall again! The reason a friend might communicate with you through a third party application or site instead of just emailing you a link? The friend also has a busy life and more than one friend. He or she can share with multiple people at one time instead of having to email individually, and without even having to go into his or her email account. Want to be sure you’re never bothered again? Be sure all those pests read what you think of them. By the way, if your account was canceled, how come all of a sudden I have a string of your posts in my FB account, including this blog entry? (<;

My Facebook “wall” is off so people can’t post anything. There are many ways to simplify Facebook.

It seems people don’t realize that one does NOT have to keep all the crappy Facebook “friends.”

Also, I came to the point where I found the way to block ALL applications. And I hide people who get on my nerve so I don’t see them. They can see me but I don’t see them. Often, it’s not that I don’t like them. It’s just that their posting do not interest me and I don’t care to spend time to see any time they post something I don’t enjoy knowing.

I have deleted a lot of people. It’s either I delete them to control my environment or I leave Facebook altogether. I’ve met wonderful people on Facebook and enjoy communicating with them. To be able to do that, some terminations were necessary.

Early in my use of FB, I realized I had no interest in most of the time-wasting third party apps and viral silliness. If anyone invites me to “toss a sheep” I ignore. I do find FB valuable as a town square for all walks of my life. My adolescent pen pal, best buddy from grade school, a colleague from 8 years ago and friends from my current life all networked into one hub. Recently I had dinner with a friend whom I hadn’t seen in 30 years rediscovered through FB; I don’t think we would have pierced the physical time/space boundaries without a virtual howdy do. Thus I find FB useful as a means of initial re-connection and a smattering of comment chat. 5-10 minutes in the morning and in the evening generally is all I need.

I think Linked In is replacing the job search boards as a primary recruiting tool. Recently recruiters have found me there, which is nice. It’s also a great as a virtual address book of past colleagues to see what their up to today. And if I’m interested in a particular company, find out if I have any second degree friend of friend connections. But I imagine it’s most useful in the corporate world and not so much for a self employed person like yourself.

Twitter is the most interesting tool by far. It’s the hive mind pulsing and crackling with information. It functions as a way to see what peeps I know are up to know and meet peeps far and wide who share interests. It’s information dissemination in real time. I just wish there were better filtering tools so I could segment tweeters like I do RSS feeds in Google Reader. (I hate Tweet Deck’s vertical silo UI.) Awaiting some genius to solve that problem.