Farewell to Facebook

I've been on Facebook for three or four years now. As with all new technologies, both physical and cyberspatial, I've gone through different phases of using it. I started by only "friending" real friends and using it as a diary. Then I realised that I was revealing too much of myself to too many people. Even among friends there are different levels of intimacy. You admit more secrets to your partner than to anyone else. Close friends know a lot about you, but not as much as your partner, and those whose company you enjoy but whom you see less often will know much less. The same is true for emotions. In the real world our partner is the one who sees us at our best and at our worst. Friends that we see occasionally see only one side of our character - the side that we prefer to show to the world.

It took me a little time to understand that Facebook does not distinguish these levels of intimacy and I found myself giving out too much information to people who didn't need it. Pre-Facebook it didn't matter if only the Other Half knew I was in a bad mood, but what was the point of my anger spilling out into the internet? Did I really want friends across the world, who I saw perhaps only every five to ten years, to get the impression that I had become an embittered old man?  

Of course not. The point of a private life is that it should be private, which meant that it had no place on Facebook, which is anything but private. So, I thoroughly erased that account and started again. The new FB was only for my professional side. I created a page that covered my interests of bookselling and theatre and occasional commentary on the rapidly deteriorating world in which we lived. And to promote my professional interests, I went on a befriending spree, adding FB friends across the world if I thought we had even the slightest interest in common. 

That lasted for a year or so. For all my efforts I did not see any great reward. My bookselling business continued to grow slowly, but it wasn't Facebook friends who were buying. Theatre was more difficult, but here too it was clear that my FB page was having no impact. 

I decided to change tack. I kept my personal FB page and continued to use it only to post "public" announcements. The number of "friends" dropped rapidly - which didn't particularly bother me - and I was pleased that I had a small but slowly growing number of "followers". And to focus on my particular interests I set up professional / speciality pages - one for Arbery Books, one for Arbery Productions (it started off life as the production Californian Lives), on for Tadzio Speaks . . . (an intermittent production) and one for atheism, about which I used to write a regular column.

For a while the number of followers grew, although none have hit the 200 mark. I made regular announcements relevant to each page and was pleased to see that, according to FB statistics, they reached the majority of subscribers. Then, about 6 - 12 months ago, I noticed that the number of people who saw each post slumped, at the same time as Facebook started offering me the option of paying to "promote" the posts. Promote odd bits of information? I thought about it - for about 20 seconds - and decided no. I continued posting, wondering if perhaps there were some other reason that fewer people were seeing my posts. The statistics did not improve. It really was a case of, if I wanted to use FB to tell people about the various projects I was involved in, I would have to pay.

I won't pay. Not because I disapprove in principle. I'm happy to advertise if I can see a response. But my long, and often bitter, experience of business is that most money paid by small businesses on advertisements is wasted. The cost per customer is too high. I succeed in selling rare books not because I pay to tell the public I sell rare books, but because I have an interesting selection of stock and increasing numbers of people buy from me and come back to buy again. 

Not paying is not the only decision I have come to. I have also decided to stop posting on the professional pages I set up. There is no point in wasting time when only one or two people see each post. And so I am back to my personal FB page, on which I spend no more than ten minutes a day. The time I save by abandoning the other pages I devote to other aspects of my work. Life is easier now. And who knows, maybe a year or two from now even my personal Facebook page will go. 

And then I might think again about this blog....