Have you ever wanted to add an old teacher on Facebook? How about a coworker? Or even your boss? How about adding your mom?! Many people steer clear of adding these people because they want their personal lives to be kept private... not necessarily because they are doing anything "wrong" or "bad" but because they deserve to live their own lives and not have everyone hovering over their shoulders and examining their every move (that's usually a mom thing).
In one of my past blogs I explained how annoyed and aggravated I am with Facebook's invasion of privacy. Well, I came across this article that tells you the 10 settings you need to know about in order to remain private.
One of them explains how you can create "Lists" and this allows you to customize all of your settings to each list. For instance, if I create a list named "Work Friends" I can then go in and block my coworkers from viewing certain photos or other information. You can even block friends from viewing and commenting on your Wall.
Now, all of this is great if you don't want to offend someone by "ignoring" their add request just because you don't want them to see certain pictures of you (on those crazy Friday nights out), but some people can take the lists to an extreme. I had a coworker who friend requested me and then blocked me from viewing EVERYTHING on his Facebook! I couldn't even see which friends we had in common... the only thing I saw was his profile picture. What's the point in adding someone as a friend if you can't even connect with him? And the funny thing is, it's only been a few weeks and he is already trying to friend request me again!
Facebook is meant to be a good way to connect with friends, family, teachers, and coworkers. If you are using your privacy settings in a limited manor then I don't see anything wrong with it, but you don't want to block people out so much where they can't even comment or write on your wall. Those are all of the positive things about Facebook, everyone loves to see "Sally Sue wrote on your wall" or "Brad Smith commented on your photo." We all love the attention. If you have a Facebook, use it for the purpose it was created for... connecting with people!
I agree that sometimes you don't want everyone to see everything you post, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's not nice to post something that will offend one friend, just to make another friend laugh. You gotta know your audience when you say stuff, especially inside jokes and the like. You can't just put everything out there for the world to see. Being careful what you post is not being two-faced or secretive, it's just being sensitive to your family and friends' personal tastes. Facebook is like having all your family, friends, and acquaintances in a virtual room together, which could be a total disaster in real life, so you have to keep control of the situation.
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