Facebook and the Devil

I’ve had a long, distrustful relationship with Facebook for a while.

Maybe it’s my professional history in IT security or government privacy, but whatever, the way Facebook seems to treat people — and their data — gives me the heebie jeebies.  My main reason for using Facebook was to keep up with the play in my karate dojo, but during 2015 my work, life, and the universe applied so much pressure I needed to step back from that.

Thus, do I need Facebook anymore?

I’m conducting a small, controlled experiment.  Here’s what I popped up* yesterday:

Next weekend, I’m planning to go through and flense my Facebook friends clean, and reduce Facebook to a news agregator and “Richard Parry Author” system.  I won’t be responding to friend requests for a little while, if ever.  It’s quite interesting embarking on this phase — I feel strangely free.  Or freed?  I’m not certain, but it’s not a bad feeling.

* There is a typo in that post — “mean” should be “meant” in the last paragraph.  I know the pedants out there will notice, so this is for you.