Many people are using social media these days. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and many others that aren’t even on my radar.
These applications are great for staying in touch with people near and far, people that you know personally and even some that you don’t but have found because of common interests. Depending on your online habits, you may use the applications differently. Some people feel the need to update others on every aspect of their life like “Today I ate oatmeal for breakfast, am wearing striped socks, and my dog just sneezed.” Others use their accounts more sparingly and post news items that are of interest to them or an occasional update on their life.
This summer I’ve noticed that lots of my friends on Facebook and those that I follow on Twitter are posting updates about trips that they’re taking. Some are going to the shore for a week or weekend. Others are visiting family across the country. And others are leaving the country for European excursions. Foursquare updates let me know that someone just checked in at Tapas on Ann or the Starbucks in West Hartford Center.
I’m glad people are out enjoying themselves; relaxing, traveling, supporting the economy. But what I’m concerned about in the back of my mind is that they are announcing that they are not at their home. That they are gone for a few days or a week or longer. Do we really have a good control over who views this information and can they use it in a bad way? Will the wrong person get this information and break-in into your home? Once you know someone’s name, it’s really easy to find out where they live thanks to the Internet.
Who views this information is only as good as your Privacy Settings on Facebook. Or how good you are at controlling who follows you on Twitter. And what if you’ve posted something on Twitter and then someone else re-Tweets it so that whoever follows them can see what you’re up to?
I understand the social nature of these websites, but I also see some information sharing as an unnecessary risk. Kyle and I recently went away for two days. I talked about that trip on Facebook when we got back. The only people that knew we were away were a few people in our neighborhood that I contacted privately through email.
I’m not trying to be the social media police here. You may just want to think about who really has access to all of the information you post online before you announce that you’re leaving for vacation.
I’m assuming that many of the people that follow this blog use some form of social media. Am I overreacting here or do you also think about these types of issues?
PS- I am at home, so don’t try to break-in to my house!
I feel exactly the way you do. In July, I went home to Montreal for a couple of days. While I would have liked to have said on Facebook how excited I was about it, I resisted. Instead, when I got back, I said how much fun I had. Past tense. “Better safe than sorry” is a much underrated way of being.
By the way, weren’t you at Walgreens in Bishop’s Corner last Friday at around noon? I think I recognized you.
Dawn, glad to hear that I’m not the only one that’s paranoid. 🙂
Last Friday was one of the days I was away, so that wasn’t me. Keep looking though, I’m kind of like Where’s Waldo…
I love, love, love that you wrote about this. It’s such an irritation of mine! Occasionally I may say where I will be going, but I try to remain vague about dates and times because (1) I’m not egocentric enough to think people care that much about my life and (2) I do not need to advertise when I will be away from my house. I trust my friends, but can tell them my plans in a less public way.
I have read articles about this in the past and agree it makes sense to be careful – I don’t use social media sites but my husband does – and he used to innocently put a lot of overly specific stuff in there – and then we decided to try to avoid putting things specific to our schedules and vacations- until after they are over and then its fun to share pictures etc. for him to his friends.
It has recently gotten worse with Facebook’s introduction of places, which I guess is supposed to mimic foursquare? People only a few years younger than us are constantly using that feature, which I find kind of stupid.
Some well read newspaper columnists agree with your assessment:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/fashion/19foursquare.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/08/checking_into_your_own_home_co.html?hpid=sec-technology
Seriously?! I thought for sure it was you, complete with baby, asking about the Baby Tylenol recall. Good thing I didn’t completely embarrass myself and say hello. HAHA!
The paranoia is over-hyped. Home robberies are location based, while social media is not (completely). It would take work for a would-be criminal (assuming they are not a friend of yours) to read your update, then match your name with your address, then case said property, then commit the crime. If they can go to that much work, there are far more profitable crimes.
I was a little paranoid about vacation updates until I noticed a good deal of my neighborhood is on vacation the last week of July through the second week of August. By Aug 5, of the 8 closest houses to us, only one family was home. (This is new to me.) It seems like a slam dunk for break-ins and a lot less work than following and researching twitter streams.