How to Quit Facebook

Maybe your affinity for Facebook began with a simple desire to keep in touch with your friends, or make new ones online. Or perhaps you were just bored. But now Facebook is the thorn in your side, and possibly a bona fide addiction. If you're finding it difficult to spend an hour of your waking life without checking or thinking about Facebook, you may be looking for a way out. This is it.

Steps

1. 1
   Admit you might have an addiction to Facebook. and keep track of what you actually do on Facebook. After every Facebook session, ask yourself: "What did I just accomplish by checking Facebook?" Odds are, you're probably just logging in to see if you've been poked, or for updates of when your friends change their profile image, write a new note, add a new song to their favorite music, and do other little things that you can really live without knowing. But those might be the little things that keep you on a very short leash. At first you're confirming a new friend, and next thing you know, you've spent an hour looking at all the new people you're connected to. Recording your Facebook activities can help you realize how much time you actually spend getting nothing constructive done.
2. 2
   Define your goals on Facebook. Make a list of what you really want from it. Why did you originally sign up? So you could remember friends' birthdays? Find and keep old friends? Meet people with similar interests? Whatever your goals may be on Facebook, you need to make sure that you devote your time there to accomplishing those goals, instead of going off track with activities that get you nowhere. If you have no goals (i.e. if you signed up just because you had nothing better to do), skip the next step.
3. 3
   Make and follow a Facebook schedule. After each Facebook goal, write down how much time and at what frequency you'll need to be on Facebook to achieve that goal. Then write down the total number of hours, per week, that you should be spending on Facebook. If it seems like too much time, adjust your activity times accordingly. Following this schedule might bring your Facebook addiction under control without requiring you to quit altogether. Some examples:
   
   
   • Stay in touch with college friends - Check every other day, spend no more than 15 minutes responding to messages only from college friends. (1 hour per week)
   • Maintain my group - Check every morning and evening for 10 minutes each, only to remove any spam or junk. Note to self: do not respond to posts, comments or messages during this time. (2 hours, 20 minutes per week)
   • Keep my group interesting - Spend 30 minutes every other day reading all of the comments and responding. (2 hours per week)
   • Finding new friends - Browse profiles for 30 minutes, twice a week. (1 hour per week)
   • Total maximum time I plan to spend on Facebook: 6 hours, 20 minutes.
4. 4
   Think of other things you could be doing with your time spent on Facebook. If you find yourself spending, say, 10 hours a week on Facebook, make a list of all the other things you could accomplish in that time. You could:
   
   
   • pick up a part time job and invest that money in stocks
   • teach a child how to throw a football
   • get fit
   • get a girlfriend
   • build a gas scooter or an adobe wall
   • clean your room
   • calculate the center of gravity
   • volunteer
   • Read a book
   • teach yourself a new language
   • make a papasan chair cushion
5. 5
   Block the time you spend on Facebook using parental controls. Use such controls asEzInternetTimer or TimeUpKidz.
6. 6
   

    Goodbye, Facebook account
   Leave Facebook. If you've created a schedule and couldn't stick to it, or if you've decided that any time spent on Facebook is wasted, then you may need to quit cold turkey. This is a last resort, and is easier said than done. There are two options here. You can deactivate your account or delete your account:
   • Deactivate your facebook Account - this lets you take a breather without losing the information; or
   • Permanently delete your Facebook account - this is the real end, everything will go!
   • If you've started any groups, transfer admin rights to someone you trust.
   • Clear every last bit of information from your profile. Don't forget to remove your photo!
   • Send an email to your Facebook contacts explaining your decision to leave. Include your current contact information so they can get in touch with you without Facebook.
7. 7
   Find alternatives to using Facebook. If you've gotten into the habit of using Facebook messages instead of email, update your email address book so you can get in touch with your friends next week and continue your correspondence outside of Facebook.
8. 8
   Turn your profile into a pile of useless data! This is another way to "delete" a Facebook account, and you might have fun doing it. When you wake up the next day, your profile is gone. For good. Amen.
   • Delete all your "friends" - unless you want to show the World you're quitting for good.
   • Change the profile’s name - you can do that. Be sure to choose something really lousy.
   • Fill it up with offensive content - texts, dubious pics and all.
   • State clearly that Facebook employees are just a bunch of - beep - beep - beep - fill in the beeps with the most politically incorrect insults.
   • Invite lots of randomly picked people to become your “friends”.
9. 9
   Find a Facebook substitute. A lot of people get addicted to Facebook because they check it when there's nothing else to do, like in between classes, or during a lunch break; then the curiosity spills over into time that should be spent doing other things, like studying or working. You need to find something to do during those little windows of time in order to prevent relapse. There are several ways to give yourself a "Facebook patch":
   
• Stay away from the computer as much as you can. For many of us, getting in front of a monitor is a default activity. Try to find other things to do that'll keep you away from the computer and therefore, Facebook. Keep a notebook. Meditate. Finger weave. Learn to doimpressive tricks with a tech deck. Call your friends on the phone or do something fun with them in person. Anything that you can do anywhere and for short periods of time is good.
• If you're at a computer during critical relapse times, find another website to log onto and read instead of Facebook. Yes, you may get addicted to that instead, so try to find something that's actually a constructive pursuit, like checking news websites, learning a new word each day, sharpening your mental skills by solving a sudoku, practicing that foreign language you decided to learn, or contributing to the How-to Manual Anyone Can Edit.

How to Permanently Delete a Facebook Account

Facebook makes it pretty easy to deactivate your account which will temporarily hide your information. However, if you want to permanently remove your information, the "permanent delete" option is much harder to find. This article will cover two easy ways to erase your Facebook account so you can Quit Facebook forever.

STEPS :

Before You Start

1. 1
   Remove Facebook Connect logins. Many sites, like Digg.com and Meetup.com, allow signup and login using Facebook Connect -- List of Facebook Connect sites (may not be complete or current.) If you have accounts on such sites, go to each of them, and:
   • Make sure you have a way to login that does not involve Facebook Connect (you will most likely have to create a username and password on the site if you haven't already.)
   • Logout of the account, then log back in using the alternate method (not using Facebook Connect), ensuring that you will be able to access the account after your Facebook account is deleted.
2. 2
   Remove all Linked Accounts so that you won't accidentally login to Facebook.

Short Method 1

1. 1
   Copy and paste http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_accountonce you have logged on. This screen will present itself:
2. 
3. 2
   Click "Submit" and follow instructions. There will be a simple password and a Captcha spam check to enter in. Captcha spam checks are to make sure you are the real owner of your account and not an automated program.
4. 

1. 3
   Do not login or connect with your Facebook account. You will receive an email saying that your account will be deleted in 14 days. Any interaction with the account during that period could prevent it from being deleted, so for 14 days:
   • Do not try to login to your Facebook account; you may want to clear your browser cache and delete your cookies so that you don't login inadvertently.
   • Do not click the Facebook Share or Like button on any site you visit.
   • Do not use Facebook Connect to login to or signup on any site (see Before You Start, above.)
2. 4
   Wait and watch. At the end of 14 days, all of your posts, comments, info, etc., will be permanently made inaccessible on Facebook.

Longer Method 2

If the short method does not work for you, here is the longer method that sets out how to get to the deletion button.

1. 1
   Go to the bottom of the home page. Click on the "help center" (http://www.facebook.com/help/).
2. 
3. 2
   At "help center", type in "Delete Facebook" into the search box at the top of the page. Click "Search".

1. 
2. 3
   Arrive at the page titled "Facebook FAQs". Look down the list of FAQs and open the one called: "I want to permanently delete my account. How do I delete my account?"
3. 

1. 4
   Read the Facebook information - it basically asks you whether you want to deactivate your account or delete it permanently. (Deactivating means that Facebook retains your profile information (friends, photos, etc.) but you have disappeared from the Facebook service.) Facebook makes it clear that if you want your information removed forever, you can never recover the information and it will be wiped for good.
2. 5
   Click on https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account. You will be reminded that this is a permanent deletion and that your account cannot be reactivated and that none of the content or information you have added can be retrieved.
3. 
4. 6
   Click submit. Follow the steps, such as entering your password, email, and Captcha code.
5. 
6. 7
   Do not log in for the next 14 days and your account will be deleted completely. Note, however, that if you change your mind before the 14 days period is up, just log in and this will reactivate your account!

Emailing Facebook to delete the account

To speed up the process and if the above failed, try emailing Facebook.

1. 1
   Email Facebook directly. The email is: privacy@facebook.com. Request that Facebook deletes your account.
2. 2
   Wait to get an email response from Facebook confirming that your account has been permanently deleted. This should take a few days.
3. 3
   If you don't hear back from Facebook within a week, email them again. This time, not only email Facebook at privacy@facebook.com, but also send an email to support@facebook.com and one to info@facebook.com.
4. 4
   Finally, attempt to log in to your account once you get an email from Facebook. If you're unable to log in and don't get a message asking you to reactivate your account, your Facebook account has been permanently deleted.

Deactivation

1. 1
   If you're not one hundred percent sure that you want to permanently remove all that information, you can temporarily "deactivate" your Facebook account. Just follow the detailed instructions at How to Deactivate a Facebook Account.

Warnings

• If you try to register using your contact e-mail address, Facebook will inform you that the address is currently in use. You must first register using an alternate e-mail address, then add your contact e-mail address when the account creation process is complete.
• Bear in mind that you will not be able to restore your account after the 14 days of the permanent deletion process have passed.