Social Network Dropouts

Retiring Guy thinks it's a slow day in the newsroom....is not sure why this is a story. Social networks are a fluid development. New users sign on every day. Current users decide, for a variety of reasons, that it's no longer for them. And some folks profess no interest from the get-go. As Laura LeNoir has clearly shown us -- twice -- it's a matter of personal choice.

Link to February 12 USA Today article, "Some ditch social networks to reclaim time, privacy".

Excerpt: Facebook reports that it has 400 million active users worldwide. Make that 399,999,999. Laura LeNoir is done.

"I feel better, I feel lighter, I got my privacy back," says LeNoir, 42, an office manager at an educational software company in Birmingham, Ala., who logged off a few weeks ago. "People say, 'You'll be back.' But I read more, walk the dogs more. I'll be fine."

As the social networking train gathers momentum, some riders are getting off.

Their reasons run the gamut from being besieged by online "friends" who aren't really friends to lingering concerns over where their messages and photos might materialize. If there's a common theme to their exodus, it's the nagging sense that a time-sucking habit was taking the "real" out of life.