On Monday night I spent a little bit of time weeding my Facebook page. I don’t mean trimming friends, but “unliking” every page for which I’d previously been a “fan.” I also deleted every single wall post and deleted all “tagged” instances on images and notes for folks who no longer have access to my Facebook page. Given that I am only a casual user, I was surprised by how many instances I found. The reasoning for this massive pruning should be fairly obvious in light of recent liberties being taken by Facebook with personal user information.

I haven’t yet made the decision to deactivate my account. (You know you can never really “delete” it, don’t you?) That point may be on the horizon, but for now I will make a point of being especially conservative in what I post there. There are a few dear friends on Facebook with whom I fear I would lose touch if I were to deactivate my account. So, for now, I’m still on Facebook. However, the clock may be ticking.

The bigger issue I have is in Facebook’s efforts to monetize every aspect of our personal, professional and private lives. “Targeted” banner ads on every page and the latest endeavors to mine your browsing preferences beyond Facebook can only mean more blatant misuses of user information in the future. Obviously Facebook is not alone in their efforts to squeeze dollars out of your every keystroke. However, we do still have choices and I am dead-set against third-parties making money from my casual Internet usage.

In his book In Persuasion Nation, George Saunders presents us with a world in which we are bombarded with minute-by-minute advertising and influence as due course in our daily lives and as our patriotic duty. In his short story Jon, orphans are sold to market research firms and treated like athletic superstars – complete with trading cards. Their job is to be “Tastemakers and Trendsetters” and their minds are implanted with memories of fake family and friends. The inevitable decline of the spirit and mind from this ceaseless consumerism is mitigated by regular doses of licensed, marketed mood-elevating chemistries.

Saunders’ writing is filled with sardonic wit and a liberal splash of hyperbole. However, it is a testament to the absurdity of our modern culture that it’s not much of a leap from the fictional world of George Saunders and our real world of “recommended if you like” advertising, Red Bull and Rock Star “energy enhancers” and modern television and media that serve no purpose beyond product placement and advertising. Sadly, we may be much closer than we think to a real-life “Truman Show” in which an American child is “adopted” by a major corporation and his or her life played out on world-wide television and the Internet.

And so, I find myself drastically pulling back from any form of media that unduly pushes this gorilla marketing concept into my life or even hints at disseminating my personal information or preferences to anyone at any time without my express consent and knowledge. As you can imagine, the real estate for these more reputable third-party sites and activities is getting smaller by the hour.

I may soon find myself in a space where I only feel comfortable placing my content within sites that I wholly own and can control. This is no guarantee that my content and information won’t propagate without my consent or knowledge. However, it does seem to be the lesser of all evils regarding an online presence.