When Facebook first started and it was limited to university students, I think people were almost a bit more open and less reserved with what they posted. You had to register with an email account associated with that university in order to get an active account. It was reasonably well-secured. Then it opened up to high school kids, can't remember how they policed that one, then they opened it up to everyone, and all hell broke loose. No one worried so much about privacy settings etc when it was just university students on it (which was when I signed up - yes, young'in) but it all went to hell after that.

The people who didn't want to share their lives with the world quickly either stopped posting entirely, or started the whole tighten-up-visibility stuff, particularly when Facebook started getting slammed for lax privacy settings.

Other people just friggin went to town posting absolutely everything about themselves. I have a few people who post their running or cycling routes... these routes often start or end at their houses or workplace. So you just broadcasted where you live... genius move, that one. Same goes with apps like FourSquare and such broadcasting a location.

I have one person who has two kids, aged 8 and 4. I could go and download literally HUNDREDS of pictures of both those kids. I know so much about those two girls that I could convince someone that I was their cousin or something. Birthdays, major life accomplishments, hobbies, teachers' names, dance recitals, skating lessons, you name it, she's posted it. My kids will NOT be featuring at all on Facebook, no thanks.

And it is worth pointing out the newer trend: Today's teens are NOT on Facebook, because all their weirdo parents are on Facebook. I have two cousins, 13 and 17, and while they both have Facebook accounts, they rarely post. The younger one I think has made a total of 3 posts. The older one mostly posts NBA videos. Neither actually use it for proper sharing. They've moved onto cooler methods like Instagram and Twitter, the tools that their weirdo parents are usually not on. That will also change as newer things come out... not to mention things like SnapChat, Yik Yak, and so on.

I remember being taught this when I was a teen. My first email account was some nickname from my field hockey coach that had zero resemblance to my actual name, and the display name on my email account was my first name with a fake last name or maybe some funky symbols or something. Can't remember, but it was not my actual name. I remember being PARANOID about giving out any personal information about myself. ASL anyone? I think the S part was the only part I was ever accurate about. Age was always inflated by at least 15 years, location was always a random US city.

Now you're a pariah if you don't have your real name on Facebook, lol.

As for the cruelty part... I've posted about this before so I'll be more brief about it here. I was bullied in elementary and high school. And it sucked. But at the end of the day, I got respite. The worst I ever had to deal with outside of school hours was maybe a total of 2 or 3 prank phone calls, and that ended when call display became more mainstream. Nowadays... there is no escape. The bullying is incessant. And it's less personal in terms of in-person interaction because you can be mean into a keyboard and leave the other person to read it as and when. But there is no escape. There is no respite. I completely shudder to think about what my high school experience would have been like had I been in high school now with those same bullies. Terrifying is the only thing I can think of to say.

And it's just getting worse; I was listening to a report on the app Yik Yak the other day and how schools are having a massive problem with it. For those who don't know, the app is basically an anonymous version of Twitter. You geo-tag your post when you upload it, and then when you open the app, you can look at posts within a certain km radius of your location. The posts are all anonymous.

Schools are having huge huge problems with anonymous bullying, because the posters can't be identified. You go to school, open the app, set it to a radius of 100m or something, and you get mostly messages about your school. Easy and anonymous way to bully, and of course, so much mob mentality about it as well.

Sigh. This got long and it's kind of depressing. I don't really know what else to say now, so I'm just going to press Submit and then go do some dishes.

I, with my then partner, ran a blog for years. The theme being urban idiots transplanted to the country; sort of The Good Life with snow. It included all sorts of stuff that made us readily identifiable and several people in real life mentioned seeing the blog. My colleagues all saw it as, on the day when the car got stuck in the driveway and I attached a chain to it and pulled the car apart, I posted pictures to the blog and sent a link by way of explanation for being late.

We had a laugh with it. We met some nice people through it. What harm is there in living publicly in that manner?

Most of what people post is tedious crap. Most of peoples' lives are tedious crap. The wonder is not that some choose to churn out every detail of their mundane lives but that others choose to read it. Facebook posts are like Christmas newsletters, full of slightly distorted tales of wonderful existences of interest only to the authors and their Grandmothers. Not quite the fantasy world that is linkedin but getting there.

The problem is not the medium but the lack of interesting things to post to it and the saccharine style most posters adopt. I try to redress the balance by only posting news of my car accidents, firings, traffic tickets and things that came out of me I didn't know I'd eaten (on both facebook and linkedin).

Very true. Reading Linkedin I have to remind myself that most of it is crap and people are artificially making themselves look superior. A lot of it is 'look at me, I have over 500 + friends. Would you like an introduction?'

I'm sure your Linkedin page is interesting.

Wow. I wish I had seen that!

My first email account was my Student registration number and then @ my university url.

I had a nickname Hotmail URL but during the job search it used to weird people out. My gmail is particularly obvious now.

You have to carry a fake online persona or it can impact your work chances. I wouldn't hire a sales person who wasn't on LinkedIn for example.

The golden rule is just don't post anything that you would never want to see appear in a newspaper or broadcast.

That being said I've been known to post under the influence. Even on here

On the other side I've unfollowed many people on Facebook. Even family members. I have no desire to see or hear about people's children. Just not interesting

Bloody hell, you go on more than I do! Longest post challenge ahead I think (trying to lighten things up, which I probably, spectacularly failed to do!)

I don't think people, well, *think* about things, as your example about running routes details. Ok, if you just have friends on your list, and limit your posts to being seen only by friends, fair enough, but I think a lot of people leave things a little more open.

I will, on occasion, post a picture of my son. My cover photo thingy is a pic of him (as was the previous one). Any pics, bar that, which I post will have the privacy set to "friends". The ex does post the odd picture too, and she's rather anal about who sees the pictures too. Neither of us will just post every picture, achievement, etc of him. It's not needed. If family need to see a pic, it'll be emailed to them (or whacked in the family dropbox).

It would appear I'm obviously not up on what the yoof of today does, which is probably both good, and bad. I know my son isn't on the internet (I'm VERY funny about letting him mess around with tablets / phones / computers - rather he be playing with his toy trucks and trains than some techno device; says the father sitting at his desk tapping away at a computer!) and as and when he gets to the stage, I will ruthlessly police what he's up to, and what he is saying and to whom. Hmm, overbearing parent I think

ASL? Oh wow, that takes me back (AOL / MSN Messenger) - I did have to ask what it meant the first couple of times I saw it (guilty of answering "yes, please!" to S too ). I also recall that on a certain forum, those asking where known as "sharks" and the recipients were know as "shark bait" or just "bait", thus if someone new popped up, the sharks would pile in with the good ol ASL, and it could turn into a feeding frenzy, and, on topic a little more, some of those sharks would take to trying to get a lot of detail out of the poor person, and sometimes go off and do some digging (I remember one girl had a lot of info dug up on her and one of the pricks was overjoyed at posting it). Some people would actually take a somewhat dim view of this behaviour, no way to treat new people, and wade into the water and bash the sharks on the nose. This did sometimes have the effect of others assuming you were trying to be the dominant one and fend off any opposition, which wasn't at all true, and it's where nicknames get created.

I'm with you on the cruelty part. Keyboard warriors / ninjas (spineless pathetic bastards, actually) think it's so much fun. I really don't know if they genuinely know how much pain they are causing their victims. Yes, some pain, but do they really realize that they could very well drive that person to suicide. It's a horrific thought, moreso when one pops up and DOES know exactly what they are doing. How can you possibly think that's right?

You know what, I think parents need serious education, and I'm including myself in this, as to what the younglings are up to. I've never heard of this Yik Yak thing, and from what you've said, it sounds like the perfect tool for the bullies to utilize.

Well, photos of me wearing not much else but a very natty hat, accompanied by a friend in scuba gear wouldn't be too embarrassing. I'm sure I could find a logical reason to explain them away

Posting und the influence, umm, yeah, < raises hand > guilty as charged. Usually though it makes no sense at all, especially from the phone, given the wonders of autocorrect.

Yep, trying to keep up with it is a huge challenge for parents... particularly when kids are now walking around with pocket-sized porn studios 24/7... there's the other side of this that terrifies me to think about.

As for stuff like Yik Yak... I remember when I was a kid, hearing things like "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me!"... and it's so not true.

Sticks and stones can only break bones. Words can shatter a soul.

Just out of curiosity, why?


I understand why some people use it, but why would you not hire someone for not having one?


The corporate world sounds confusing, must be why I avoid....

Obviously wasn't a success but I had someone attack me once online and I landed myself into hospital from it, one reason why I have pretty much limited my actual participation online to this website and stopped posting everywhere else.

Some people seem to thrive on causing others pain and the internet has allowed all those types free range because of being able to hide behind their computers.

Misery likes company.

Interesting thread. I use a nom-de-plume (obviously) here and on the other web forums I frequent. If you know my real name, then it would not at all be difficult to track me down given that my surname is pretty rare in the part of Canada that I live. I have always worked under the assumption that unless I shared my real details with you, you'd struggle to find me IRL. However last year I got contacted in real life by a journalist who had tracked me down via BE. That was a bit of a wake up call as I'm a reasonably accomplished googler and couldn't get from Atlantic Xpat to the real me easily. At the end of the day I guess if you want to find someone enough you'll find a way of doing so. As a consequence I am a little careful about what I post here. Just a little.

I do use the book of face but have my privacy settings pretty well locked down and limit my FB friends to actual friends and family rather than vague and virtual acquaintances. FB can be a useful tool to share your life with family and friends elsewhere.

Unremarkable, I would have thought. Typical of someone who feels the need to have a presence but who doesn't seek employment offers. It does contain the sentence

"My goal has always been, and remains, to be a deck chair attendant (beach chair attendant in appropriate jurisdictions)."