I'm starting a separate thread for this because the other thread was intended for the technical process of killing a facebook account
One issue that a few people have commented on is getting the contact details of friends before closing the facebook account and telling your friends you are no longer on facebook. I'd like to be more specific about that and suggest that they only passively gather the contact details of friends from facebook. Look at each friend's profile and copy those things that are public, like email address, phone or birthday. Don't click the "request phone number" button: if the friend has never put their phone number in facebook, clicking that button encourages them to do so. What if there are some friends on facebook who you have no other contact details for? Well, this is a great problem because it forces you to think and thinking helps you become independent. If you chat to them through facebook to ask for any more details then you are actually asserting that you depend on facebook and you haven't really got enough faith that you can survive without it. If they are really your friend and you can't find their contact details there is every chance that they will try to find you somehow, this can be a good test to help identify the stronger friendships. In the same way, I feel that asserting you are leaving facebook is also a bad thing as it gives facebook more status. Leaving silently is much better as it creates curiosity: some people will wonder where you went and look for you in the real world (as a bonus, displacing online contact with real-world contact improves the quality of those relationships). Some will actually ask you if you unfriended them or if you left facebook and you can respond very concisely "why do I need facebook? If something important is happening somebody always tells me". If they ask "why didn't you tell me you were leaving facebook?" you could reply "why would I need to do that?". So, don't even tell your spouse or closest friends when you close the account, wait and see if they notice. For those who feel this is too hard-line, maybe one final step is to simply send each of the more remote/uncontactable facebook friends a private message with a link to your blog or something else that is already public about you just before closing the facebook account, with a note saying "I don't feel social media is completely reliable, please save this in case you can't contact me here". That gives people something tangible to start looking for you outside facebook without really giving up more specific things like phone numbers and it also avoids making direct statement that you are leaving. Regards, Daniel
