I have to say that the so-called "privacy" situation over at Facebook has me utterly enraged right now.

I have noted in the past – and even warned other people – that Facebook takes a really backwards approach to it all. Basically, they assume that you want to share, and the onus is on you to tell them when you don't. Fair enough, I suppose. When I signed up, I went through and set everything so that "only my friends" could see things. Much as I love you, fellow network members, I don't want to share my life with you.

In the time since I first did that, Facebook has added a lot of features. Many of these come with their own set of privacy options. And (I suppose I shouldn't be surprised), Facebook assumed with each of them that I would want to share with the world (they were wrong). So every few months, I would check my privacy settings, be surprised by a few things, and fix them.

But today took the cake. Today I received a comment on a posted item from a person who is not in my friends list, and it tipped me off that something must be funky over in privacy setting land again.

To my horror and irritation, Facebook has re-vamped that whole page... and re-set all my privacy options back to so that I'm sharing my Facebook life with "All my networks and all my friends".

What.

The.

Fuck.

I fixed them all *again*... but I'm actually pissed off enough to consider bailing altogether. This, combined with the realization that choosing to live much of my digital life within this "walled garden" means that I am forgoing the opportunity to ever access that content for reference later (shared links, etc) has left me feeling like Facebook kinda sucks. And by kinda, I mean... maybe a lot.

According to the New York Times, Facebook has finally (mostly) allowed members to opt to delete their accounts (rather than just disabling them, as I wrote about before).

I know I bitched that I wanted the option of deletion. And I'm glad it's available, now. But despite my almost-daily thoughts that I should just be done with it and try to reclaim my productivity... I can't yet fathom deleting it all.

Sigh. Think of me what you will. I just love status updates (and no, I will not switch to Twitter...)!

I recently started wondering whether I ought to quit Facebook. Not forever... just for a little while. Like a lot of my friends, I spent altogether too much time on this addictive social networking site, and I am starting to wonder what my life would look like if I reclaimed that time. Would I read more? Do more yoga? Work more productively? Or just spend more time on Flickr? ;)

For better or for worse, Facebook offers a "deactivation" option only – and not a delete option. So if I just wanted to take a break, the upside is that Facebook makes it easy to come back – you just log back in. In the meantime, you disappear from the site, but the next time you log back in, you're up and running (the only thing they don't re-instate is any group privileges you might have had).

On the downside... Facebook makes it easy to come back – you just log back in. Damn! That means that the onus is all on me – I have to have some willpower. All I have to do to come back is plug my password back in. How ridiculously easy.

I'm (perhaps irrationally) annoyed by this, actually. I have an addiction! You can't just expect me to screw the top back on my whiskey, put it down next to me, and get on with my life! It's going to sit there and stare at me... begging me to just have a tiny sip... just one time... there's nothing better to do, after all... I'll screw the lid back on again after just one sip...

Come on, I need more support than that. Pour my booze down the drain and move me to a small town without a liquor store. Please. Even if I just had to go through a several-step process in order to get back in, that would probably be enough to keep me out until I really wanted to come back, rather than caving in the first moment of weakness.

Facebook has this feature where every "group" has a list of "related groups" (which, as far as I can tell, shows you other groups that members belong to).

What are the related groups for the "I Love Yoga" group?