On Friday, I decided to leave Facebook for the month of December.

Why? There are many reasons and none of these are protests against Facebook’s so called “improvements” to privacy.

The primary reason is that I don’t know why I’m using Facebook anymore. I knew why I used it back in 2006; it was a small exclusive student community. I could manage it and it was fun. Now, it’s this clutter of games, groups, spam, and other useless garbage.

I need to figure out what purpose Facebook serves me before I return.

I can share my ideas using JoeyColeman.ca and Twitter. I can share my photos here on JoeyColeman.ca and Flickr. My pinball league uses Yahoo! Groups and Google Wave is quickly becoming the discussion forum of choice.

What’s left that makes Facebook special other than my back-and-forth poke wars with my friends Sarah and Annette? Nothing.

People can reach me by email and inform me of events using this same old fashion technology.

The added bonus of not being on Facebook is that I won’t look stupid for not creeping people. If it’s important, you’ll have to tell me and not assume I creep everything about you every hour of the day.

Now, I’ve had a few people say they’ll miss seeing my YouTube favourites show up in their feed. The integration features will be missed, but I can replicate them here.

There’s an added bonus, I know how many people are creeping me here.