No More Social Networking.

I have discovered, much to my great horror, that social networking websites are totally addictive and a serious threat to my personal privacy and security.  I found that I was on Facebook several hours a day, wasting time that should have been spent doing more important work.  Except for my immediate family, nearly all of my Facebook "friends" were people I have not seen or heard from since high school.  I was wasting my time reading about everyone else's drama.  Granted, only with a random visit to a friend's Facebook page did I find out about her untimely death, several weeks later.  I had known earlier that she was diagnosed with cancer and that her (third) husband had recently passed away.  During my last phone conversation with her, she told me that she was leaving for Michigan to visit her family.  I suspected that she was going there to spend her final days with her family, and my suspicion proved to be accurate.  The worst of it was that I never had a chance to say a proper goodbye to her.  I must also concede that I found out about my 30-year Class Reunion through Facebook.  I also realized that while social networking has its benefits for many people, it is no longer for me.

Despite the fact that I had set my security and privacy on Facebook and Google+ to the maximum security levels and that I have usually been very careful about what I posted on these sites, I have come to the realization that what I had intended as innocuous remarks had been taken out of their intended context by people for whom those remarks were not intended, possibly endangering my life and those of people who I hold very dear.  Furthermore, I believe that neither the Government nor private companies have any business snooping about my private affairs.

Therefore, after many months of agonizing contemplation and several discussions with my attorney, I have finally acted on my decision to permanently delete my Facebook and Google+ accounts.  For professional reasons, I am maintaining my LinkedIn account for the short term.  It is far better to have a small number of real close friends than it is to have hundreds of fake friends. 

You can still contact me via my personal website, BillLawless.me , or via this blog.  The official websites for my novels, toplessdelivery.com and foreverautumn.us, are still active and have some new features.  Please be sure to check them out.