Bye, Bye Foursquare (and Flickr)

[ 2 ] June 27, 2012 |

n13foursquareI decided to scale back my social media a little, and those of you who enjoy tracking my every move on Foursquare I’m sure will be sorely disappointed.

Or perhaps not.

Before I traded in my dumb phone for my current Android phone I didn’t quite understand the novelty of Fourssquare.  “Checking in” seemed to be the thing to do if you had a Android, iPhone or Blackberry.  Because of this of course I had to join in once I had my coveted smart phone.

When I became the mayor of my first location I beamed with pride.  Badges, I needed those stinking badges!  Ok, I am exaggerating a little, but you get the idea.  It was fun.

Now the novelty had worn off and I decided that I didn’t really need to have an account anymore.  For the following reasons…

  • My life isn’t that interesting, actually it’s pretty boring.  If you were my friend on Foursquare you’d have seen I go to HyVee and HyVee Gas – a lot – and that I like Mexican food.
  • I asked myself do people I just know if cyber world and haven’t met in person – do they really need to know where I’m at – all the time?  No.
  • If you really want to know where I’m at or what I’m doing – I know this is old school, but you could call or text.  People who know me well have my phone number.
  • My network isn’t very reliable and so there were plenty of times I couldn’t bring up my current locations or it had me somewhere else.  It loaded slow, and did I really need to waste my time with this?  No.
  • Now that you can “check-in” with the Facebook mobile app did I really need the redundancy?  No.
  • Security, I realize I could tweak the privacy features, but when you blog like I do and work with juvenile offenders like I have broadcasting where you are at a specific ideas isn’t always the best idea.

I also decided let my Flickr account go dormant.  For starters I hardly used it since I could upload pictures to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.  Now that Android users can use Instagram which I can easily share those pictures on Facebook and Twitter it didn’t make sense to continue.

Anyway two less places to connect with me at, but there’s always Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

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Category: Life

About the Author ()

Shane Vander Hart is the founder and editor-in-chief of Caffeinated Thoughts.  He is also the President of 4:15 Communications, LLC, a social media & communications consulting/management firm.  He is a communications director for American Principles Project’s Preserve Innocence Initiative.  Prior to this Shane spent 20 years in youth ministry serving in church, parachurch, and school settings.  He has also served as an interim pastor and is a sought after speaker and pulpit fill-in.  Shane has been married to his wife Cheryl since 1993 and they have three kids.  Shane and his family reside near Des Moines, IA.  You can connect with Shane on Facebook or follow him on Twitter and Google +.
  • http://twitter.com/kevinsubra Kevin Subra

    My 40,000+ photos & videos on Flickr disagree. Facebook is good for “this is what I am doing now” photos & videos, but I don’t think I could use it as a repository for all my photos.

    I’ve never “checked in” anywhere. I never saw the point.

    I’m all for downsizing though. Press on!

    • http://shanevanderhart.com/ Shane Vander Hart

      Yeah If I had that much stuff on Flickr I wouldn’t get rid of it either. I don’t really store all of my photos online, but I can see using it for that. As a social networking site though it’s behind the game.

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