Your 'friends' don't need to know your business

 

That sounds exactly like something my mother would have told me while I was growing up. She might have used the term "neighbors" instead of "friends." She was very big on privacy and believed the less information you shared, the better off you were.  Apparently Mom should be a social media consultant these days.  Mike Musgrove of the Washington Post pointed to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle about an Arizona man whose house was robbed after he had left Facebook and Twitter updates about his extensive family vacation.

"We had mentioned that we were going out of town for an extended period and even Twittered about the trip as we drove for three days," he told an Arizona television station. While he was gone, video-editing equipment was stolen from his home. Although he is not sure his tweeting tipped off the burglars, he says he will be more careful in the future about what he shares online."

No one can specifically link the burglary to his specific updates about vacating his home to his more than 2,000 Twitter followers and large number of Facebook friends.  It is a good reminder to be careful about broadcasting personal information that could be misused in forums as truly public as Facebook and Twitter.  It also sounds like a heck of an idea for a future television crime show episode.