How to permanently delete your Facebook account

Maybe you're wasting too many precious hours looking at what your friends are up to. Perhaps you no longer like the idea of giving your personal information to a website. Or maybe you've decided Myspace wasn't so bad after all. Whatever the reason, you can delete your Facebook account - and here's how to do it.

Step 1: Have a Facebook account (obviously).

Step 2: Click on the small options arrow next to the padlock at the top of your Facebook page.

Step 3: Click Settings in the drop-down menu.

Step 4: Go to the Security tab on the left - it's the second one down under General.

At the bottom, you'll see the line 'Deactivate Your Account'. Click the edit link on the right and the deactivate information blurb will expand.

Click the 'Deactivate your account' line along the bottom.

Don't for a moment assume Facebook will make it easy for you to leave.

Step 5: You'll then be taken to a last-ditch plea page, begging you to re-consider your actions.

You'll then be shown a list of friends you never talk to anyway, but who would, Facebook insists, genuinely miss you when you're gone.

You then have to list your reason for leaving.

Useful note: If you are an admin of any pages, you will lose admin access to them and the pages themselves may stop working if you're the sole admin.

A useful new addition to the original process is an automatic re-activation feature, so if you just need a break, or need to pretend you don't have a FB account for a day, you can re-activate at a later date of your choosing.

Step 6: CLICK THE DEACTIVATE BUTTON.

And you're done, say hello to your new life!

But wait...what if you love your new-found digital freedom. You can make the switch-off permanent by following two more steps.

Step 7: Download a copy of all your information. Just in case you ever feel nostalgic and want to reminisce on all those selfies. You can find where to do this in your Settings area from your page menu.

Select 'Download a copy of your data' at the bottom of the main page.