I was reluctant to embrace Facebook and fought it for several years. I had Twitter and that was enough of a time suck for me. The problem with Twitter was that my family and personal friends weren’t really a part of it. So I joined Facebook to be keep in touch.

That was all she wrote.

Thanks to Facebook I’m back in touch with friends from the old neighborhoods. I’m chatting with the boy who I walked to kindergarten with and the girl I babysat after high school each evening. I’m in touch with former co-workers and long lost relatives. Facebook has brought back a life that I’ve been missing, but it also created a problem.

The personal Deb was digging Facebook. The professional Deb was also digging Facebook. I friended writing, blogging and social media friends.  I mean, it’s all about promoting and pimping my stuff, right?

Here’s Where it Starts to Go Wrong…

I always say Facebook is the extended family picnic and Twitter is the rock concert. Something happened though, and it all got mixed up. All of a sudden folks are bringing the guitars and the amplifiers to my picnic and I can’t hear above the noise. I’m logging on to find nothing but promotional links from people I don’t recognize. Seriously, who are these people? Why are they looking at pictures of my son?

Yesterday I was chatting via email with a friend and she mentioned her morning sickness. When I congratulated her, she mentioned it was old news as she’s been talking about it on Facebook for weeks. That’s when I realized how much the noise and the links were getting in the way of what is really important. I love my social media life, but I need to have a place for me and the special people in my world.

Something had to change.

Blame it on Darren Rowse

So yesterday,  I came upon a post by Darren Rowse informing many of us we’d be purged from his Facebook account. It wasn’t personal, he assured us, but he wanted to have a place where he could spend time with his friends and family alone.  I didn’t blame him because I had been considering the same thing. Darren’s post cinched it for me.

I have a fan page for my blog network so folks can go there for updates, and I have my Twitter account where I (over)actively chat with many online friends. Surely that’s enough?

Yesterday, I began cleaning up my Facebook account. Most of the business acquaintances will be removed though there are some writing and social media friends I’m choosing to keep as Facebook friends because they became real friends as well. I hope those who I unfriended understand, though. As Darren said, it truly is nothing personal.

I’d like to be able to chat on Facebook without worrying what details are being released to the public.  I want to feel comfortable in sharing family or school stuff and photographs to family and friends.

Am I jumping on a bandwagon? Probably. I’ll admit I got the idea from somewhere else, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. When you work out of your home and there’s a blur between the virtual world and the real world, you don’t want to say “no” when folks ask to be your friends.

I need my quiet place.

That’s More Like It

I’ve so far un-friended about 25o people from my Facebook account. Today I was able to read actual news from my friends. It wasn’t lost in links, retweets and cause requests.

It’s good to be home.

Deb Ng is a writer, blogger and founder of the Freelance Writing Jobs network. Follow her on Twitter @debng.