Bill Gates gives up Facebook Account - Says Stop Poking Me

Bill Gates was forced to give up on the social networking account on Facebook after too many people wanted to be his friend.

Bill Gates said he had tried out Facebook but ended up with "10,000 people wanting to be my friends".

He revealed the problem to an audience in New Delhi, India as he was honoured for his charity work.

Mr Gates said he was always confused to figure out whether he "knew this person, did I not know this person".

"It was just way too much trouble so I gave it up," Mr Gates told the business forum.

Mr Gates was in the Indian capital to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, awarded by the government for his work for the charitable organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The foundation, built by his massive fortune, has committed almost $US 1 billion ($1.22 billion) to health and development projects in India, targeting AIDS and polio.

Mr Gates also confided to the audience that he was "not that big at text messaging" and that "I'm not a 24-hour-a-day tech person".

"I read a lot and some of that reading is not on a computer," he said.

Mr Gates, who sought to drive a vision of a computer on every desk and in every home, said the information technology revolution had been "hugely beneficial" but added: "All these tools of tech waste our time if we're not careful."