Thursday, January 2, 2014

Facebook Page Deactivation Q&A

A sudden and needed goal of mine that developed in the last few days of 2013 was the need to rid myself of Facebook.  Instead of slowly working this into my 2014 goals, I'm planning to rip the band aid off as soon as January 7th.  I have posted a notification on my page with means to contact me, but I have noticed a few questions pop up over the past few days.  Here's a compilation of questions and answers about my Facebook Deactivation:

Q. Where can I find you once your Facebook is deactivated?
Q. Will your professional pages Concepts and Caricatures and Witchy Words still stay available?
A. Yes. They will now be managed by my husband.

Q. Why are you choosing to deactive your profile?
A. Facebook has been the center of all things negative in my life.  For one, I spend way too much time connected to Facebook when I could be doing other things.   It's my chief time-waster, a true obsession, and I'll be happy to gain all that free time back!  Secondly, it has been the root of all of my friendship woes and frustrations about my personal life from over-comparison.  Finally, I rely on Facebook as a means of "coworker" socialization since I get none of it as a freelance artist but I find that, while I've made several real connections, it still comes out to only a small percentage of the 3000+ people I've networked with over the years. Those whom I've truly formed lasting connections with will make an effort to show up somewhere else in my life.  These three reasons make absolutely necessary the deactivation of my profile.  I fully believe it will lead to a happier, better, more carefree life.  And since one of my health goals for 2014 involves managing my stress, this seems only logical.  Besides, sometimes it's just good to disconnect.

Q. Are you deleting all of your posts or just deactiving?
A. I'm just deactivating.  While I may over-share on Facebook, there's nothing on there that you couldn't find here.  Or really anywhere else I am on the internet.  That doesn't mean that I haven't privatized everything and am removing photos in the process.  If you recently discovered that you've been put on restricted viewing since Sunday, December 29th, know that I have slowly been moving all of my friends to restricted viewing as I begin the deactivation process.  This is not a personal target; it just makes the work a little easier for me.

Q. Because you're simply deactivating, would you ever consider reactivating your page in the future?
A. After a full twelve months of removing myself from that network, if I feel the need to reactivate it, I will do so on an extremely limited basis.  There would be no status updates, no photo updates and only the very, very few profile picture changes or life event notifications.  However, I don't see Facebook to be all that important in the long run.  All of those are things you could easily get right here.  In the foreseeable future, I absolutely do not plan to return.

Q. Couldn't you just practice moderation?
A. I could attempt to, but I know myself too well.  If I have a slice of cake, I want the whole cake.  I could install programs to limit my time on Facebook, but inevitably I would remove them.  I am keeping my professional pages, which means I will still have a Facebook presence.  Just a significantly smaller one.

Q. Are you really deactivating? (Also: Aren't you just deactivating for attention?)
A. No.  Actually quite the opposite.  The few days prior to making this decision have been full of far too much attention.  I'm really quite relieved that it will be over shortly.  That being said, I don't want to miss out on the people I really love talking to.  That's why I'm waiting until January 7th to fully deactivate.

Q. I love seeing pictures of your pets.  Where will I be able to find them once you're not on Facebook anymore?
A. I got this one quite a bit! I was surprised that so many people were interested in those crazy, obsessive pictures I post.  My answer? Here and at my Witchy Words blog.  It may be more of a weekly or twice-weekly occurrence rather than an every day thing, but I promise that you won't miss out on the very best moments of my fuzzy babies.  If it becomes too distracting from the subject matter, I may create a separate blog dedicated just to them.  They are pretty amazing, after all.

Q. What about the Circle of Open Traditions group on Facebook?
A. As part of my desire to manage my stress this year, I'm resigning as Circle Coordinator and passing the reigns to Alex and Stacey.  Because most members of the circle live in the same apartment complex, it makes far more sense for someone from that group to coordinate events anyway.

Q. What about the Fit for Fourteen group on Facebook?
A. I know I just started that and many were eager to join in.  I have officially moved that group over to MyFitnessPal.  You can view and join that group by clicking here.

Q. Are you keeping your individual pet pages?
A. Those pages were created in order to sort pictures of my fuzzy babies since I post a ridiculous amount.  It made it to where, if I wanted to find a specific picture of, say, Zeus, all I had to do was go to his profile and search the photos he was tagged in.  It made my life easier at times.  However, that was truly their only purpose. While they will not be deactivated, I will not be logging on to update them.

If you have any more questions, please let me know here!  I will be posting this and my status about deactivating my Facebook daily until January 7th, which I hope will give everyone interested plenty of time to connect with me in other ways.  I hope to see you around!

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