Editorial In less than a decade, Facebook has morphed from Mark Zuckerberg'due south dorm room project into a global phenomenon where member activity and trends make the evening news.

I joined the site in 2005 when "the new MySpace" required an academic e-mail accost and was by and large populated past young man techies. Initially I resisted the urge to sign up since I already had a contour at the rival social network, only I eventually caved to the peer pressure on campus; it was the new absurd affair and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

The early days of Facebook were much different from now. The site layout and contour pages were very basic, and the young and reckless didn't have to worry near family members or employers stumbling beyond their questionable photos.

As the site loosened membership requirements, I initially perceived the expansion as a good thing. I reconnected with childhood friends and high school classmates, and as a budding photographer, I loved sharing photos and receiving feedback from those on my friends list.

But as Facebook closes in on 1 billion agile users, its overwhelming success is mostly why I've decided to stop my long-standing human relationship with the social network. Seven years is a long time to maintain whatever online account, much less one that demands almost daily attending.

Good old Facebook, circa 2008.

Contrary to what some of my friends remember, there wasn't one unmarried event that "prepare me off" then to speak; the decision had been building for a while. I knew there was a problem when I'd wake upwards each morning and instinctively reached for my phone to check the latest overnight developments posted to my news feed.

More ofttimes than not, whatever I plant would put me in a foul mood even earlier crawling out of bed. Many things annoyed me, just the short list includes political rants, religious preaching, human relationship drama and grammar that would disappoint a get-go-course instructor.

When I told friends my plan to go out the social network, some suggested that I purge my contact list to eliminate some of the nonsense, just after deleting over 300 people a few months earlier, I knew this wasn't the solution. After all, the fact that I even had over 600 "friends" is comical. Others recommended to hide feeds from people that frequently annoyed me, simply again, that would simply mask the true issue: I had grown tired of Facebook.

The social network has been commercialized and ruined by its ain fame. The lure of rekindling old friendships has long since passed. I've always hung out with a close-knit grouping, and so I knew those people would even so be around even if my contour wasn't.

I pulled the plug on my business relationship a few weeks ago and post-obit a brief sense of liberation, I quickly faced the consequences of my decision.

Spotify forces you to have a Facebook business relationship if y'all desire to use the service.

I didn't retrieve that Spotify required Facebook and despite being a paid subscriber, I was instantly locked out of my account. I had grown fond of the streaming music service and wasn't thrilled with the idea of losing the playlist I had congenital over the by year.

I also quickly realized that I would no longer exist able to watch some MMA fights on Facebook. The UFC streams select preliminary matches live on Facebook earlier the main carte du jour airs through various television outlets. Facebook is the just way to lookout man these fights and then one time again, I was missing out on other forms of amusement only because I didn't want a Facebook account.

It seemed my only options were to cancel my Spotify membership and forego watching UFC prelims or create a dummy Facebook business relationship without a public profile -- I chose the latter.

I linked Spotify to my dummy Facebook business relationship simply I lost admission to the coveted playlist from my erstwhile account. I emailed Spotify'due south tech support but as anticipated, they didn't reply. It was only afterward I reached out using my press credentials that I received assist.

Spotify managed to transfer my playlist from my old business relationship to the new dummy account and the service supplied me with a ane-month premium membership code since I merely paid for a full calendar month's service before disabling my Facebook account.

I've been "off grid" and so to speak for a few weeks now and information technology'southward mayhap ane of the all-time decisions I've fabricated in a long fourth dimension. Non having to deal with all the riff raff that comes with Facebook is refreshing. A couple of minutes checking Facebook every few hours really add up over the class of a twenty-four hour period -- or seven years.

I don't experience like I've missed out on anything worthwhile since closing my account. Exterior of a few shut friends and family members, I doubt most of the 300+ people on my friends list volition even notice I'm gone. Information technology shows how disconnected we all are in such a connected earth.

Equally with whatsoever habit, it can take some time to suspension the addiction. I've plant myself mindlessly navigating my bookmarks before snapping dorsum to reality and realizing Facebook is no longer at that place. I also instinctively reached for my telephone after waking upwards the outset few days to check my news feed, getting as far as the "social" binder before realizing it was all for zip.

If you've been on the fence nigh dropping your Facebook business relationship, I'd urge you to give it a effort and run into if y'all can live without it. Later on all, information technology's like financial advisor Dave Ramsey says: if you don't like being out of debt, you can always go right back into debt tomorrow. The same holds true for Facebook.