This Thanksgiving as I prayed to God for my family– I prayed to him to give me more time with my loving family. An insight or revelation struck me-

I was spending more time with my computer than with my loved ones.

Is Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn essential to living? No

I have 1700 followers on Twitter

1100 “Friends” on Facebook, and 9429 “Connections” on Linkedin

Deleting Facebook was an emotionally wrenching decision- see this screenshot- I tried to download all my account- family photos (320 mb) but connection kept breaking-

so I had just deactivate and not delete the account. You win, Zuckenberg

How to-

Right Hand Top Corner —-Account Settings- Deactivate Account

After Facebook de activates your account- it mocks you by saying this this in YELLOW “

Your Facebook account has been deactivated.

To reactivate your account, log in using your old login email and password. You will be able to use the site like you used to.

We hope you come back soon.”

I go back to Facebook to download all my family photos before final deletion (and not just de activation)- I get this message

It may take a little while for us to gather all of your photos, wall posts, messages, and other information. We will then ask you to verify your identity in order to help protect the security of your account.

Yeah Yeah Mark.

One Down Two to Go

Deleting Twitter

Twitter was disappointingly easy-

Go to http://twitter.com/settings/account

At bottom left you see Deactivate my account.

Twitter tries to scare me now-

Is this goodbye?

This action is permanent.

Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider? Was it something we said? Tell us.

Before you deactivate your account, know this:

This action is permanent: account restoration is currently disabled.
You do not need to deactivate your account to change your username. (You can change it on the settings page. All @replies and followers will remain unchanged.)
Your account may be viewable on twitter.com for a few days after deactivation.
We have no control over content indexed by search engines like Google.
If you’re creating a new account and want to use the same user name, phone number and/or email address associated with this account, you must first change them on this account before you deactivate it. If you don’t, the information will be tied to this account and unavailable for use.
Okay, fine, deactivate my account (thats the button)

I clicked the Okay fine Button.

One more pop up-

Re-enter your Twitter password to deactivate @DecisionStats.

Ok Done-

Twitter tries to scare me again —-

You deactivated your account.

Account restoration is currently unavailable. Here is the message you agreed to before deactivating your account:

his action is permanent.

Before you deactivate your account, know this:

This action is permanent: account restoration is currently disabled.
You do not need to deactivate your account to change your username. (You can change it on the settings page. All @replies and followers will remain unchanged.)
Your account may be viewable on twitter.com for a few days after deactivation.
We have no control over content indexed by search engines like Google.
If you’re creating a new account and want to use the same user name, phone number and/or email address associated with this account, you must first change them on this account before you deactivate it. If you don’t, the information will be tied to this account and unavailable for use.

So Long Twitter, I gotta spend more time with my offline family okay.

And probably anyone trying to do sentiment analysis on my twitter feed for social media analytics now has an incomplete data point (hehe)

Last One- Linkedin 9349 connections are valuable- I was thinking of auctioning this on E Bay but they kicked me out.

So I just go for deletion.

I spend 10 minuted looking for the delete account button-this is getting a bit annoying now.

I finally go to

http://help.linkedin.com/

Item 4- Closing my Account-

Linkedin neither scares me nor emotionally coddles me – This is what is says-

Closing Your Account

How do I close my account?

Log into the account you wish to close.
Hover your cursor over your name in the top right of your home page and then click “Settings”.
Click on “Close Your Account” under Personal Information.
Select a reason for closing your account.
Click on “Continue”.

Members should only have one LinkedIn account. Multiple accounts can prevent the ability to accept an Invitation. Closing additional accounts should resolve this dilemma. Prior to closing any secondary accounts:

Inventory all connections and identify any that may be missing from the primary account you wish to keep.
Send Invitations to those connections missing from the primary account.
Update any profile information that maybe on other account profiles.

So I try exporting all 9300 + connections using http://www.linkedin.com/addressBookExport

I dont think I will send that many invites again- but some of these people have been good to me ( 18 of them even wrote recommendations- which are non exportable it seems)

I check my downloaded csv file- yup all 9379 email addresses are there.

Final round-

Update- Linkedin does NOT get deleted. I get this-

Your close account request must be processed by customer support for the following reason:

You have more than 250 connections.

You will receive a confirmation email from customer support indicating that they received your request to close your account.

The account that customer support will process for closure is below:

Ajay Ohri
9,429 Connections
16 Recommendations
ohri2007@gmail.com (primary address)

and the email says

Member Comment: ajay ohri

11/24/2010 23:10

Member ID: 6691344
Member Name: Ajay Ohri

The member has attempted to self close this account and was unable because:

The member has a large network of connections to close. Please close during non peak hours.

Please confirm with the member when his or her account has been successfully closed.

So long people- you know where to find me- on this blog (and some on skype).

And if you dont’ know how to find me on my blog-

Happy Thanksgiving-and kill that Turkey 🙂

Demi Lovato Deactivates Her Twitter Account (shoppingblog.com)
John Mayer Deactivates His Twitter Account (shoppingblog.com)
New Facebook privacy tip: ‘Super-logoff’ (cnn.com)
LinkedIn CEO: We’re adding a new user every second (money.cnn.com)
Stephen Fry says ‘bye-bye’ to Twitter … again (cbc.ca)
Making Friends: LinkedIn vs. Facebook vs. Twitter (e1evation.com)

Is this goodbye?

This action is permanent.

Before you deactivate your account, know this:

You deactivated your account.

his action is permanent.

Before you deactivate your account, know this:

Closing Your Account

How do I close my account?

Ajay Ohri

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