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Facebook and social networking not for everybody!

By Michelle Magnan, Canwest News Service — Renee Amber’s experience using Facebook was short, but not sweet. A self-described “private person,” the 30-year-old Calgarian had put off joining the social networking site for years.

She didn’t like the idea of disclosing her personal life online. But on a recent Friday afternoon, she signed up, joining the site’s more than 250 million active users. “I wanted to know if I could actually have a relationship with Facebook,” says the actor and producer. Amber was cautious, though. She did not put up a profile picture. She did not initiate conversation with friends, but accepted the roughly 10 friend requests that came in each day.

“It was kind of fun. All of a sudden you’re like, ‘Ah, I have a social life that takes place when I turn on the computer,’ ” she says. But Amber also had issues. She spent much of her time perusing the privacy settings and found she could not keep her friends list private. But mostly Amber felt uncomfortable, like an intruder. She couldn’t even bring herself to check out other people’s pages.

“I feel like it’s rude, even though it’s not,” she says. “I mean, that’s the whole point of Facebook. But I don’t know. I just felt awkward about the whole thing.” On the following Monday afternoon — just three days after she created her virtual persona — Amber deactivated her account.

Turns out she could have a relationship with Facebook; she just didn’t want to. Amber isn’t alone with her distaste for the world of social networking.
Though there are many sites available — MySpace and Twitter are two more — not everyone is quick to embrace the technology. And there are hints some people may be logging off and tuning out for good.

The April cover story of New York magazine, called Facebook Revolt, told of people leaving the site for a variety of reasons — disagreement with the terms of service, distaste for the money-making side of the site and a general uneasiness about revealing so much personal information online. Simply mention the topic and you’re sure to come across Facebook escapees.

Head to Facebook’s press room page and it’s easy to find info on the millions of users, updates and minutes spent on the site, but no numbers of how many people have taken down their accounts. “That information is not disclosed, so nothing more to share on that front unfortunately,” Alex Brown, a Toronto-based communications person for Facebook, said in an e-mail response.

No one knows how many people have left Facebook, or what their reasons are for leaving.But the reasons for joining are obvious. When done well, social networking can help people keep in touch with friends and family around the world, stay informed and even boost their careers. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said recently the site now has 250 million users, up about 50 million members in just over three months.

“From the beginning, Facebook hasn’t been about building a website. Facebook is about all of the people using it and all of the things that are important to you,” he wrote in a blog. But on July 16, Canada’s privacy commissioner ruled that Facebook is in violation of the country’s privacy law, citing “serious privacy gaps” in the way the popular social networking site treats its 12 million Canadian users.

Many of the people who have left social networking behind — or avoided it altogether — cite a desire to return to the old-school form of communication: Face-to-face conversation. Trevor Bacque, a 22-year-old University of Calgary student, is among them. When MySpace was popular, he joined, but he soon realized he was spending too much time on this “new fixation” of his.

He deleted his account. When Facebook began picking up steam, Bacque didn’t even blink an eye. “I thought to myself, ‘No, I’m not going down that road again.’ ” But Bacque estimates more than 95 per cent of his friends are on Facebook. “Even my friends’ parents have it. But it seems when you spend more time conversing online, you’re losing out on real relationships,” he says. Without it, he feels he’s able to live in the moment, and not worry about taking that perfect picture to post online or updating his status. Bacque also feels he’s able to avoid some of the problems that social networking can cause in relationships with significant others.

He cites examples such as people fighting when one person in a new couple hasn’t changed their relationship status online, or when someone discovers their partner is communicating with ex-flames. “I’m kind of glad I’m removed from it that way,” he says. “There’s enough real-life drama. You don’t need to deal with Internet drama, too.”

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