I have decided that it is time for me to leave Facebook. It has a negative influence on me, my friends, and our larger society. This decision has not been easy since Facebook provides many useful services and most importantly lets me connect with so many of you. I want to explain some of the top reasons, and to share with you where I am going.

Facebook has lost my trust by:

• Encouraging addictive behavior (infinite scrolls among other things).
• Sharing our private information with whoever will buy it.
• Not playing nicely with other applications. Instead of including the contents of a post in an email notification, Facebook forces you to pull up Facebook (and risk getting sucked into the news feed time sink).
• Contributing to the fragmentation of our society by selecting posts full of outrage and provocation for our news feeds.

Facebook is “free”, but we pay in so many ways. I’m not buying it anymore. And I’m taking my data with me.

Before I go, I want to thank you, Facebook, for helping me to remember people’s names, for providing a way to share my thoughts and pictures, for giving me a sense of who got married or had a baby or took a cool vacation. 

My new home on the internet will be my website davidbruffner.com. Feel free to visit and say hi. I write little posts from time to time about what I am interested in. I’m still sorting out whether to spend time on other social networks. My favorite ways to connect are talking on the phone and meeting in person.