How To Leave A Social Network In 1 Easy Step

My favorite soliloquy appears in William Shakespeare’s Henry V, Act III Scene 1:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base

A soliloquy is a device often used in drama when a character speaks to himself or herself, relating his or her thoughts and feelings, and also sharing those with the audience. A soliloquy has also become a common device used before people decide to delete their social network account(s). They rant and rave about why they’re leaving, how they’re never coming back, what triggered their decision to leave and also once again about how they’re never coming back.

They’re never coming back.

Not today.

Not tomorrow.

Not next week.

Not the week after next.

The irony of it all is that eventually they come back.

I’ve seen so many Twitter and Facebook departure soliloquies, only to notice a few days or weeks later, that same exact person reactivating their accounts and tweeting or updating their status.  Now, I firmly believe it’s a person’s prerogative to do what they want to do (my ode to Bobby Brown), but as the saying goes, “save the drama for your momma”.

No one wants to read your tweet stream of 101 different reasons why you’re leaving twitter. We’re sure it’s all for a good and noble cause sic. No one wants to read a paragraph long Facebook status as to why you’re never returning to Facebook, ever again.  Or so you say.

There’s only one simple step needed to leave a social network:

For Facebook under account security settings, you’ll find this area:

Now, after you press confirm, guess what happens? Your account is deactivated.  There’s truly no need for the pomp & circumstance soliloquies.

The same is similar on Twitter:

Twitter is even kind enough to remind you that you’ll have 30 days before your account is permanently deleted.  Isn’t that nice of them? See, it’s that simple.  Chances are, if you leave quietly, no one will ever know you’re gone, so when you return, it’s like you’ve never left. But, a soliloquy is a bit obnoxious and memorable and when you do return all people will say is, “See, I knew they’d be back”. I wonder if those people who are always leaving and coming back realize they may suffer from social networking delusions of grandeur?