Why I Quit Google+

When friends at work told me they had invites to the new 'social' Google network, I jumped at the chance to join in. Why not? I remember the halcyon days of my Facebook and Linkedin years. God, the early times were good. I remember connecting with old friends, people I had forgotten about years ago, and sure I never played any games on Facebook, it quickly became more annoying than anything.

For facebook, I got extremely annoyed that every wall notification of every "friend" I had was posted on my page. And I couldn't reduce it - other than actually removing the wall. So I did that. And in doing so I decided to remove each piece of facebook until I found there was absolutely nothing worth having in the profile. I took the step of not only deleting my account, but contacting Facebook Support and officially requesting to have my identity removed from their database, permanently. You can do that, but it requires opening an official "support" ticket. Two weeks later I recieved confirmation that my account had indeed been purged.

And Linkedin. At first it appeared to be this wonderful tool of business contacts and ex-colleagues from years ago. Good times, right? But what if ex-girlfriends begin contacting you, or, worse yet, collection agencies or enemies? And again, I stripped off every useless piece of Linkedin and quickly decided the only people having value in this relationship was Linkedin. They owned the data. They owned your information. They made the money. By selling your personal information you've sold your soul.

Finally, Google+. Sure, I made circles and put my 9 contacts into the circle list. I don't have alot of friends. I have two friends in fact and they both live in another province. Although I have friends at work I don't hang around with them. They don't invite me over for dinner. And I don't do the same. That's perfect for me. I deleted my posts and posted more stuff. People would +1 them and I would wonder what really is the point of this interface? I then cleaned out every post and deleted all my circles. The last straw the broke the camels back was when I found out Google+ requires you to use your real first and last name. Listen, I don't want people to be using my real name in any social network. And with that I deleted my profile from Google+ completely. 

And to be completely honest: Do I want my friends to know I regularly troll on Reddit and make outrageous comments? Not really.

Tired of Google+ already? Here are the steps to delete your account:

• Sign in to Google+ in a desktop browser.
• Click your full name (or email address) in the Google+ bar at the top of the screen.
• Click Account settings.
• Click the Account overview tab.
• Click Delete profile and remove associated social features.
• Confirm your choice.

This is a permanent change, and cannot be undone. If you re-join Google+ in the future, your previously-entered information will not be present.
This does not change any of your other Google services tied to the account. Everything will be as it was before you joined Google+.