Purging Facebook

I cleaned my Facebook account over the weekend.

It started innocently enough - there a person whom I had "unfollowed" (for those of you not versed in the world of Facebook, this means I did not see their posts) but had not "unfriended"  (e.g. no longer connected), yet I found myself continuing to surreptitiously check in through some morbid sense to see how they were doing.  I had not heard from them at all in at least 2 years - so I unfriended them (the choice of terminology by Facebook is, I suppose, calculated to make you feel as if you are abandoning someone).

It felt relieving to click the button.

Then the thought occurred "There are a number of other people for whom I no longer follow their news feed as well - what about them?"  And so I started looking through there as well.  Off the list they came.


And then I started looking at them from across the years - where I knew them from and what part they (or their posts) had played in my life.  There were a number I had from previous jobs or organizations I had belonged to once upon a time, people from my childhood to whom I had no connection except for the fact of proximity growing up.  There were a handful that had canceled their accounts.  And a even smaller group that were dead, their accounts no more than avatars of a lost civilization.

By the time I was done, almost 20% of my "friends" were gone.

Most of these people will, I suspect, not miss my postings at all - my postings are infrequent at best at this point and arguably of little impact or value.  A thought might occur to them some months hence, wondering where I might have departed to.  But on the whole, most of these I will never hear from again.

I have found it cleansing for the soul.

Those that are left fall into five categories of Throwers, Iai, Family, real "friends" that I actually know, and a sprinkling of the categories I eliminated which for some reason I cannot bear to let go of. 

I will try another version of this exercise soon I think, selecting another set to "unfollow" and then seeing how the absence of their news impacts my life.  Around December, they may likely be another purging.

Beyond just a general cleaning of the rolls it is, I trow, another step in the evolution of reducing my presence and sealing up vulnerabilities in my life.  The less people to risk being exposed to, to be taken incorrectly or out of context by.  Some might argue I am abandoning potential allies who might be similar to my own way of thought.  But an uncertain given for a known risk seems a poor bargain indeed.