As I was getting my morning dose of Facebook while sipping my coffee, and navigating through the diverse messages my friends posted over the last 12 hours, a light bulb lit up and I got to thinking that perhaps, we share way too much information about ourselves on there.

 

I mainly use Facebook for business purposes, but like everyone, I do, once in a while, post minute details of my life. And my husband definitely posts pictures of me where that I find a little too risque. But what is proper or not? Are we feeding people information that could possibly harm us?

 

I know, you'll be saying, "Julia, that's why there are privacy settings!". But quite honestly, do you know, I mean REALLY KNOW, all the people that are on your friends list? I certainly don't. I don't know if there are people who are only there to phish for information about my whereabouts.

 

According to an article, published in the Global Post, police recently raided the apartment of students who "had been using Facebook to befriend classmates. They then used the information their new “friends” posted on their profiles to find out where they lived, what they owned and when they were not at home". How about that! According to another article, 92% of the people sharing personal information on Facebook do not really know who they are sharing it with.

 

Too much information can also lead to identity theft. Someone who posts everything about himself, age, married or not, kids and other --and I am guilty of this myself -- is litteraly cracking the door open to the possibility of identity theft.

 

But it goes even beyond what you could imagine. How about this one? People using facebook and other social medias, as well as cell phones, to find pictures of keys and having doubles of the keys made from that picture. Think that's far fetched? Think again! A program called “Skneakey” does just that!

 

The internet is a fun place for adults to play, but if not cautious, it can become a nightmare. So this holiday season, you can bet that my status update will read "Julia, at home chilling", even if I’m not!.