You know the person, the ‘Facebook Stalker’. The guy or gal that hunts around Facebook way past the boundaries of their own wall and feed looking for information on one of the more than 500 million individuals inhabiting the site. Maybe an ex, maybe someone you just met, someone from high-school, or maybe just a friend that fell by the wayside; Facebook has most the info you want and it’s just so easy to get it. We all do it to an extent, check up on someone and get a little nosy and it’s a pretty normal, accepted practice.
But, when you think about in the scheme of the last decade, Facebook has made us all a little bit creepy. Think about it this way, some things that you take for granted being able to look up on Facebook are things you would have had to hire a Private Investigator to find out a few years ago. Here is our list of…well, why we’re all a little creepy.
- Location: Not only does their ‘Current City’ give you a clue as to where a person might be, Facebook Places, Foursquare, and clues in statuses and pictures make it really easy to find out where a person is.
- Pictures: Back in the day of you wanted a recent photo, you paid someone with a really big camera to do a stake-out in a dark van across the street from restaurants, houses, and places of work. Now you just log in and click.
- Find Their Friends: Want to know who someone is hanging out with? Gone are the days of lurking in the bushes outside the house at poker night or ‘accidentally’ showing up the same movie or bar. Just check out their ‘Friends’ box. Do they have more than you? Burn.
- Future Plans and Recent Events: So what is she doing tomorrow? Where was he last night? Easy. Check statuses, Facebook
Events which most people use as a calendar these days. You can find out what they have been up to for as far back as you care to browse and see whatever they have planned for the near future. (Unless it’s a private event, but then again, the right friend can get you in pretty easy to that info.) - 5. Email, Address, and Phone Number: You can’t always get all of these things, but people tend to pretty loose with their contact information these days. Even if they figured out their privacy settings, you can probably find a friend that can see more of their profile than you can.
It looks like this might have turned into a bit of a stalkers guide to Facebook, not that it’s from personal experience or anything….but it’s fun to think about how much more open and available things are now, for better or worse. Do you ever stalk anyone? Just a little? Isn’t it their own fault for putting it online?
Stay tuned, we’ll talk next week about how all this Facebook stalking and surfing is potentially bad for jealousy issues and even your health!