Are you Addicted to Facebook?

The Washington Post’s “On Parenting” blog yesterday featured a guest blogger, Leah Ariniello, who wrote about how much she loves Facebook because as a freelance journalist and a mother of two, it helps her stay connected with friends and family via status updates, posting new pictures, joining virtual groups and networks. But The Post also links to a couple of other stories about people who have a Facebook addiction. These are pretty serious stories. I didn’t realize that people were actually addicted to Facebook.

When I started using Facebook about two years ago, I admit, I was hooked. I also secretly loved checking in on old friends, reading about their lives, and looking at family pictures. But here recently, my attitude’s changed about how of my own life I post on to Facebook. As I began creating this blog for my class, I became very afraid to post personal stuff on here, such as family names, pictures, stories, etc. And no, I didn’t think of this when I decided to start a blog about raising my son. It never occurred to me that I might not want to post personal stories about me and my family for millions of people to read. It wasn’t until I created my ads on my site and for search engines that I realized that I am losing some of my privacy. And it scared me.

When I told my JP about my issue, he responded with, “But you post this kind of stuff on Facebook all the time.”

You know, he is right. Why am I not afraid to post anything and everything for more than 200 friends to read? Yes, it’s true that I can set my privacy settings to “just friends” but is that enough? Has anyone out there figured out how hide your Facebook profile from search engines? When I google my name, my Facebook profile appears.

I would like to know what others think about this. Do you worry about your family’s privacy on the Internet? Why or Why not? I’ll admit, I am a bit crazy about things sometimes so I would like to know what other people out there think.