Before You #DeleteFacebook, Think About One Underrated Benefit

Closing down your Facebook profile is about as trendy as opening up a Facebook profile was 10 years ago. Between privacy concerns, creepy-specific advertising, and over-crowded newsfeeds, it seems like every day some friend or celebrity is announcing they’re quitting the service (the irony of announcing one’s departure from Facebook on Facebook notwithstanding).

You’ve probably even considered closing down your account once or twice. But before you do, consider what you might be missing (and I don’t mean funny Cat memes). Sure, your newsfeed is full of random posts from people you don’t talk too much in real life. But as I found when writing my book Friend of a Friend, that over-crowded newsfeed might actually be an asset, not a liability. In fact, it might even be one of your most powerful networking tools precisely because it’s full of posts from distant contacts.

Or in network science lingo: your newsfeed is a way of keeping in touch with weak ties.

The complaint many people have about social media services such as Facebook (besides privacy) is that it’s too easy to grow your contacts too fast and you end up missing updates from closer contacts. And it’s important to recognize the many benefits of staying connected to close friends. But we also shouldn’t ignore the benefits of staying…