It hardly comes as a surprise that we, the net savvy generation find social networking sites increasingly addictive and often hard to ignore. There are a multitude of such sites like Facebook.com, Bigadda.com or Twitter.com which cater to our need of being socially connected online.Infact the process of signup is so simple now that just by providing an email address and name we can be a member of any professional or personal networking website…..
However having said that, the big question that lingers ; How many people try to delete their accounts from these sites ?
Believe me, even if you try, the process wont be so easy because you have already got caught in the Social Networking chokehold. It’s like hotel caifornia, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. A glaring case in point is that of Jason Calacanis, CEO of a well known Internet company.
Recently, facebook, arguible of the world’s most popular social network and it’s baby faced CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, came under a barrage of criticism as it was found out that quitting facebook was easier said, than done.
If we believe the matter pertaining to this, the recent emails, communications and posts from Jason Calacanis, saying good bye to Facebook was never found out to be never be a single click process. Facebook has grown multi folds with users in recent past. Most of the other websites, like Yahoo, Hotmail and many- many web app portals integrated their login process with Facebook account. Jason was no execption, but when he tried deleting his FB it turned out to be a nighmare.
Even after deleting the account from facebook somehow, one will have to wait for 14 days locking period which Facebook justifies it as a Roll Back option. If person changes his mind between these 14 days, he can reactive his account. Fundamentaly within these 14 days you account would no longer be active…..Really !!! No its not like that.
Even you want to kill your Facebook account, other third party apps, which you have integrated with other web 2.0 apps/sites like YouTube, Yahoo etc, wont allow you to do that. They will keep on pushing information to your Facebook Account and will keep your Facebook Account active in all the ways. To solve this one has to go thorugh EACH AND EVERY third party app, change the settings, Deny access to facebook and then come back to Facebook for account deletion. Believe me, its not that easy as I write.
Seriously, this borders on teh realms of a nightmare. It is difficult for a normal human to remember which apps he has authorised to push content/feeds to facebook, as during the time had allowed easy access and it is remarkable that there is no option to unsubscribe from such feeds in facebook itself, apart from a hidden button, you are almost guranteed to miss.
But I am not pointing only Facebook for this. There are lots of multiple Social & professional web portals available which doesnt allow users to exit easily. It maybe not today, but whenever you do feel the need to exit any of these social networks, contemplate on my words. You can possibly rafer back to this page and share your experience. So…..please have a clear understanding of how such sites work the the subsequent consequences before creating any account any where on any social networking portal…..Because your information is equally important as you !
