The Facebook Dilemma - Ads, Data Usage & the NSA vs. My Friends & Family

I posted the following on my Facebook account on August 30, 2013. I won't say much upfront baca use the post says it all. With the latest potential upcoming data usage changes from Facebook I may have finally hit my Facebook tipping point where the negatives (as I see them) might outweigh the positives.

Originally posted on my Facebook:

"Since the new year I've been using Facebook less and less. Since the Edward Snowden/NSA revelations I've been cutting down how much of my information goes up on any online service.

With the upcoming Facebook data use policy changes and all the ads they've added over the last few years I don't think the positives of Facebook outweigh the negatives anymore.

As has been widely noted online: "if you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold".

Frankly I think I'm ready to take myself off this particular (Facebook) market.

That being said I know Facebook had brought me close to people I would have otherwise.

Thus my dilemma is if I stay I have to put up with having an online service store lots of information about me, having ads shoved in my face and feeling I myself am a product being sold as a product but in return I get the benefit of communicating and share with people I might not otherwise (at least not in such an easy way).

After asking my wife about the idea of deleting my Facebook account (meaning all data is deleted permanently) she suggested instead deactivating my profile which instead makes it appear I'm not on Facebook but keeps all my data, friends etc so if re-activated everything is simply there again.

Another issue is that I run a public Facebook page for my blog and would like to be able to still do that. Deleting wouldn't help that and neither would deactivating.

(Perhaps a second FB account is in order just to manage the Facebook page. I'm still deciding.)

Regardless deactivating my account doesn't really solve my issues with Facebook using my data and having my data stored on Facebook.

What I stand to lose is contact with all of you out there.

I'm a fairly social person and in the past that has mostly meant people I was around immediately. I was (am) pretty bad about "keeping up" with what people I've known in the past are up to.

So that's my dilemma. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Most often in situations like this I just "cut and run" an simply leave people wondering what happened.

In this case I think I may be a bit more weak willed and might come crawling back to Facebook even with their terrible (in my opinion) ads and bad customer data usage/storage.

I've decided that when this post is about 24 hours old (and I've figured out how to still manage my public Facebook page) that I'm going to deactivate (not delete) my Facebook profile for until around the end of the year.

As some of you know we're expecting our baby girl to be born in early December. Keeping it deactivated until then should be a good test of how badly I want to use Facebook.

Deciding whether to re-activate it when she's born (an important life event that really should be shared) will be a good test of my non-Facebook mettle.

Maybe in December I'll realize that I don't really miss/need what Facebook offered and I'll decide to permanently delete my Facebook account and become one of the "Facebook-less Few".

Maybe I'll cave earlier and turn my account back on and simply say "I yield."

Either way I'd love to hear what you all think about this. You have about 24 hours from the time I post this to discuss this at which time my account will seem to disappear at least until December (if I stick to my plan).

If you'd like to keep in touch and you do the whole twitter thing you can find me on there at @jimyounkin. Feel free to mention me on twitter to get my attention. If email is more your thing send me a Facebook message in the next 24 hours and I'll send you my email address."