The $5 philanthropist - GiveMeaning

I did it! After months of trimming my MySpace "friends" from 300 down to 60, I was able to finally let go of MySpace and permanently delete my account.

Reasons for leaving MySpace:

1) The only "friends" I communicated with on MySpace weren't my real friends. I would occasionally exchange the inside joke comment with a real friend but the reality is, I prefer to converse in person with my real friends. The majority of my "friends" were people I had never met, nor likely to meet. I don't have enough time to see my real friends as it is, so any free time I do have is better spent with them in person.

2) MySpace has become overrun with "spam bots" automatically sending semi-personalized messages from bands, consumer products and sex-trade workers, none of whom are exactly friends I want to bring over to the house for a home-cooked meal.

3) There is really nothing to do on MySpace. I don't use groups, I use YouTube for video or Yahoo's video search. Craigslist is still the classifieds king and I gave up stumbling through MySpace profiles long ago.

4) I grew up. A similar transition occurred for me in the print media world: I canceled my Maxim subscription and started a subscription to Esquire magazine. It's a rather sad social commentary that I can trace my slow evolution into full-fledged adult man through magazines and websites, but these are the tools of our time.

MySpace apparently just served more page views than Yahoo during the month of November (though the measurement methodology is in question) so I'm not likely to be creating a mass revolt.

I'm not in anyway linking my account cancellation to the end of social networks but let's face it: If socializing now passes as what occurs on MySpace or any other social network, our society is truly done for.

Prediction: The next social network will be almost entirely mobile and will use geo-locating to deliver what is really socializing using a network.

If anyone needs motivation to end their social networking account, you can find it here.

Labels: media, myspace, online, socialnetwork, socialweb, web