<p>Next year this time I'll be finished with my first semester of college! Anyways, I have a few questions on the issue of deleting your Facebook before you go to college. I was thinking about deactivating the one I currently have, and then create a Facebook that has only my closest high school friends. Not the random ones I had one class with, and then I never spoke to again after that class. The ones I call on a regular basis and chill out with. The ones I'll actually take interest in what is happening in their life a year from now. Good idea? I also was kind of a nerdy kid my freshman and sophomore year of high school and as a result I have some nerdy pictures people have tagged me in those years. Such as me eating a hot dog (perverted kids =.=) and me hula hooping at a school event. </p>
<p>Note: I already deactivated my Facebook the the day before High School Winter Break started (11 days ago).</p>
<p>Lol, I've even created new e-mail address to get rid of all those old mmorpg e-mails I get. A new YouTube account to go along with my e-mail. And a new CollegeConfidential account because it'll be beneficial throughout undergrad :).</p>
<p>But instead of deleting and creating a new one, why not just keep the one that you have now? Go through your “friends” list and delete people that you don’t talk to. Don’t feel about about deleting them. </p>
<p>For your pictures, put it on private so no one can see them. Or just remove your name from the tags.They won’t be able to re-tag your picture again. Sure the pictures will still be out there, but no one will see it in your profile.</p>
<p>I have awful pictures tagged of me on Facebook. I don’t mind, no one seems to care. It’s not that big of a deal. Just delete anyone you don’t care about, and untag your pictures if it really bothers you as Mushaboom said. But no one’s going to think you’re a huge dork if you have bad pictures on Facebook, lol.</p>
<p>Okay, then anyone worth knowing will base their opinion of you on how you are now, in real life, as opposed to some lame pictures. Most people were dorks in high school anyways. Also, most people aren’t going to go through all your pictures on Facebook.</p>
<p>I personally like having the lame pictures to show people how dorky I used to be :P</p>
<p>But why not just defriend all the people you’re not friends with? </p>
<p>If you really are muscular and cooler now, then people will know that and if anything they’ll think “ah, cool” when they see old photos of you. If they really do think you’re still a dweeb then it’s either because you ARE one or because they’re judgmental *******s who put too much stock in a stupid website, and would you really wanna associate with people like that?</p>
<p>Wait, what? You can delete your facebook? I thought the only time they did that was for special circumstances like if someone died and the family requested that the profile of the deceased was removed =</p>
<p>How can you delete it (because I’m probably deleting mine some time in the near future)?</p>
<p>You’re gonna come off as shallow if you just delete your Facebook account. If there are some skeletons, here’s what you do:</p>
<ul>
<li>Delete all the friends you don’t talk to anymore</li>
<li>Untag yourself from all photos that you don’t like</li>
<li>Possibly even disable searching through photos in which you’ve been tagged in</li>
<li>Remove all posts before a certain date, if they bother you</li>
</ul>
<p>This is actually better than just deleting a Facebook account and starting anew in the sense that:</p>
<ul>
<li>If someone finds that you deleted your old account and then created a new one, you will appear as a shallow, superficial person.</li>
<li>Actually removing the tags and posts means that they’re actually removed, whereas if you just delete your account, a non-searchable tag will be solidified in all the photos/posts you were in.</li>
<li>What if you happen to meet someone in the mean-time? Wouldn’t it seem kind of weird if you only had a partially-filled-out account?</li>
</ul>
<p>So yes, you can delete your account, but don’t do that unless you intend to never return to Facebook. What you should be looking at instead is a massive cleanup and tactical use of privacy settings (even though they aren’t really that private, but they serve their purpose for the most part).</p>
<p>I have over 1500 friends on facebook, and yeah some people might look at your profile when they get bored but very rarely is it going to change their perception of you in real life. I used to care soo much about my facebook, then I realized it’s narcissistic to think that other people care much about what I have on there.</p>
<p>Your facebook image is important for employers and your job. For everyone else, they’re going to go by how they know you in real life.</p>
<p>Not crazy, just wrong. Whether people care about other people’s facebook profiles is a matter of fact, not opinion. Now you might quibble with stating it absolutely, but on balance you’ll find that he’s right.</p>
<p>No one is going to really give a ****. If they like you in real life, they’re not going to stop liking you by seeing a dorky picture or something like that. It would have to be some absolutely rare case where people would have their perception change about a person after seeing something on facebook, otherwise, they will just base their opinion of you on what they know of you in real life.</p>
<p>Just think, if you see someone with a dorky photo or whatever from high school when you’re looking at their profile, do you think any less of them? Probably not. The same goes when they’re looking at your stuff.</p>
<p>I’d definitely agree with excelblue, don’t delete your facebook- just untag photos, remove posts, and defriend people you don’t like/don’t ever talk to from high school. Echoing what others have said, no one really cares. I left all the dorky photos up of me from high school (trust me I was dorky…I was president of the knitting club at one point) and it made absolutely no difference in terms of the friends I made in college (a lot of great ones). The ONLY time where people might care is if they don’t know you at all (ie in a roommate blind situation)…see your facebook, and be like, “oh this kid has no partying pictures in high school…he must not be a partier.” or “this kid was chubby in high school.” But those superficial observations matter absolutely 0…no one sane is going to not want to be your friend based off solely your facebook profile. Just make sure to make a good impression in-person at college. When it comes down to it, if you are not comfortable enough to eventually share your high school past with your college friends (and if they don’t accept you for what is shown on your facebook profile), they are not your real friends to begin with and certainly not worth knowing at all.</p>