I am closing my LinkedIn account.
Why?
To open another one later!
Sounds funny but that's what I'm doing, and here's why.
Closing my LinkedIn account
1. Unauthorised access to my email contact list.
Although there are means to switch it off, once shaken, twice shy.
2. Spammy Invites.
The "invites", as I found out later, didn't really come from the person but from robots -- the other party's contacts were also being mined!
3. Spammy Emails.
LinkedIn has good articles coming through the emails.
But mostly, it's all spam head-hunting and invites.
Does Preferences to stop spam even work?
4. Active Connection
I killed all.
Yet there's just this one stubborn active connection that I couldn't seem to kill.
In the first place, I never even requested connection.
5. Time management
Time management in this case call for a full delete of the account.
For all of the above issues, there are instruction on how to prevent them from happening via preferred settings. But settings consumes time, especially when it doesn't work as well.
Then you have to write in to Customer Service.
The hack and the hassle!
LinkedIn takes time to manage if there are data you don't want let loose.
Pronto.
Out it goes.
6. Professional Identity
The folks who should know the value of my work already have access through my preferred choice of communication.
I may not necessarily want every one I meet to know what I do for a living.
As long as my data is "out there", I just don't feel secure, no matter what the currently provided privacy settings may be.
7. A New Me
All in all, let's just say that the person (and all the accompanying lifestyles and en·trails that comes with it) that first open the LinkedIn account (that I am closing now), is today, an entirely different person.
The new me has shed the old me.
The new me's a better me.
So why have reminders of the old me?
8. Tools and its Appropriate Use
To me, tools are meant to be used to your advantage.
The day when tools starts taking advantage of you — that's wakey wakey up time.
I need to be comfortable and secure in the tool I use.
The price I pay to avail of services - in terms of security or time - has become too high.
Time to part ways.
Update:
Viola!
As soon as I hit "Close The Account" --
a while plethora of options came up!
Now I can hide my profile, and do a lot of settings that makes for a viable option to closing it completely (in case you need it back someday or for temporary purposes).
LinkedIn should make this setting more accessible - not only when someone hits the close account tab.
Hopefully, I need not write in to LinkedIn to shut of the auto-link to my gmail contacts that shoots automated invites to them. Some members have had to do that previously, but hopefully, LinkedIn has rectified that.
Opening another LinkedIn account
Yes, I am closing one account to open another new one.
The old one reveals too much of me.
The new one will have safeguards in place - a new identity that allows me to know that is going on without revealing anything about me.
LinkedIn remains a useful resource that puts many professional profiles at your fingertips. I've been able to communicate with VIPs who otherwise will not respond via other means.
At times, this is also the only way we can find out if an old acquaintance has move on to a new position.
If you are in the market for business or a career, this is also one essential tool that helps you tap into.
The changes are working for the moment.
With the safeguard of an alter-identity, LinkedIn can spam all they want.
I'll just take what's useful, and leave the rest.
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