Why Do People Deactivate Their Facebook Accounts?

One of the main reasons Facebook users deactivate their accounts is due to privacy concerns. These users may not feel that Facebook is safeguarding their privacy in a way that they trust, or perhaps they are going through a rough period in their lives, such as a divorce, and need some time to themselves. Users who live private lives in general may feel overwhelmed by Facebook and, not wanting to share their life as much as Facebook would like, may just deactivate their account.

Users may often deactivate their account due to employment-related issues. One example of this is the job seeker, who may deactivate his account because he does not want potential employers finding his Facebook profile and using it to judge him. Another example of users deactivating over employment includes an individual whose job requires him to keep a low profile, such as an undercover police officer.

For some users, Facebook can have addictive properties, such as checking Facebook frequently for status updates from your friends or applications that make you check back hourly to reap rewards. These users may find that Facebook is interfering with their daily lives to the point where it's impacting them negatively; the solution for these users is to deactivate their account to remove the temptation from their life.

Some Facebook users may deactivate their account simply because they are moving on from the service to a new social network. For example, a Facebook user may find that Google+ or LinkedIn is more in line of what he is looking for and, rather than keep his account open, will deactivate his account as he moves on to a new social network.

While some users deactivate their accounts over concerns with how Facebook safeguards their privacy, for some users this issue runs deeper than that: they disagree with Facebook's terms of service, they distrust Facebook's CEO and the decisions he makes, and they do not agree with how Facebook is using their data. These users may deactivate their account as a protest against Facebook or to not be a part of a service they despise.