Cyber-Stalk

I am going to try my best to not sound like a broken record, but I am sure we have all heard about the dangers of living life through the internet.

You never realise how real it is until it happens to you.

On Sunday someone decided to act like a 12-year-old and create a fake Facebook profile of my novia. On said profile they stole pictures, (some that I took and were in) put up nasty captions, and wrote an "About me" composed almost entirely of slanderous lyrics from rap songs. (I think this calls for a really long moment of silence.)

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Really? Until this incident I was completely unaware that college students would have the time or desire to take part in such petty and childish events. Who makes fake profiles anymore? That was so Myspace.

On a more serious note, however, it got me to thinking--seriously thinking about the repercussions of this newly adopted cyber lifestyle. If you are not careful about who you accept as your friend on Facebook, or who you make enemies with, your face could end up on the wrong web page with the wrong connotation. Even if the pictures on your Facebook are completely appropriate, who's to say that someone won't get on your page, save them, and use them for something that is not so appropriate. Next thing you know you're at a job interview and your potential boss brings out a print screen image of the website that says you're a liar and a thief and what can you say, pictures are worth a thousand words.

Remember, maturity is a choice. No matter how old we get, there will always be someone who is conniving and tasteless and you just never know what can trigger someone to turn on you. One minute you are good and the next minute you hear that they are tweeting about you on Twitter. It may not seem like much of an issue, but students aren't the only ones on Facebook and Twitter and you can't be too sure that your information is really as private as you think it is.

It is a crazy world we live in. Face-to-face confrontations may be a thing of the past when reputations can be much more damaged through the computer. And once it goes on the internet it doesn't go away.

Be careful.