Using Social Media doesn’t mean you have to reveal all your secrets, Saturday night antics, or even simple information like your birthday. Here are some good ways to protect your information and your sanity and still keep in touch with friends.
Protect your location and basic information
You can keep your location private to prevent someone from stalking you or knowing that you’re out of town, and then robbing your house. If you don’t want people to know where you are every time you post, turn the location off on your smartphone by going into Settings and General and switching the Location slider to Off.
You can also keep people from knowing your birthday by going to the About tab and clicking the “edit” drop-down arrow next to your information. Then choose a setting.
Hide embarrassing or personal photos
Facial Recognition means Facebook can tag you in photos posted by other users. But you can control the tag settings by going to Settings, Security, and then to Timeline and Tagging. You also have the option to view photos before tagging, and request that a photo be removed from Facebook if it’s inappropriate.
If you want to limit who can see a photo that you’ve posted, simply go to the drop-down arrow above the photo, and you can choose between Public, Friends, Only Me, and Custom.
Block unwanted friends, bullies…or relatives
When someone sends you a friend request, and you want to deny it, simply hide or ignore it. Then delete it later. They won’t know that you rejected them. You can also block certain people so they can’t even find you on Facebook. Just go to Settings and Blocking next to the red circle.
Go off the grid
You can deactivate or permanently delete your Facebook if you feel it’s getting out of hand. We think that adjusting the settings will take care of any problems, but if you still have trouble, you can jump off the grid. Deactivating will completely hide your page until you choose to log in again, but deleting it permanently will erase everything.
To deactivate, go to Settings, and then Security. At the very bottom is the prompt: Deactivate Your Account. I’ve known a few people that have deactivated Facebook and never looked back.
So there you have it. Keep bullies, stalkers, and your mom from seeing where you’ve been and what you’re up. But just remember that no matter how much information you can erase from the internet, you can’t erase your boss’s memory. Once she sees you doing the sprinkler on top of a pool table, you won’t live it down. It’s good to mindful about what goes on Social Media.