Since Facebook.com was introduced to Ball State University more than a year ago, thousands of students have been sending messages, expanding their network of friends and posting personal information online.
In fact, the Web site has grown so popular, it is now the ninth most trafficked site on the Internet.
While this free flow of communication opens doors between students, users don't understand the extent of their personal information's availability.
Ken Vance, director of public safety at Georgia College and State University said facebook.com is a "tailor-made" Web site for a sexual predator. Students put too much personal information such as likes, dislikes and even where they are going to be at a certain time, he said.
"It's not a question of if it's going to happen, it's when it's going to happen," Vance said. "There is going to be a case when a sexual predator says they found all their information from facebook. Hopefully, it's not going to be a case that takes someone's life."
POTENTIAL DANGERS
Facebook.com contains features allowing students to post personal information such as phone numbers, class schedules, addresses, hobbies, photos and more.
Facebook.com spokesperson Chris Hughes said facebook.com is designed so that it can be used as a source for information and a place to communicate in a fun way.
However, many college students, who spend at least 17 minutes per day on average visiting the site, have dubbed facebook.com as "stalkerbook." Not to say there is a particular stalker out there, but students must be more aware of protecting their privacy.
For example, if students were to search Ball State University's students on the site, there are four groups which contain the word "stalker" in their titles.
"It's more of a joke between my friends and I, but we created a group about stalkers," freshman telecommunications major Megan Benham said. "It's kind of ironic though because people probably do stalk people."
On the site, however, students have the option of setting privacy settings to make profiles as confidential as possible. The levels of privacy cover a wide range: normal, which allows everyone with a facebook account to search for all users; reserved, which allows anyone to search for a user but limits who can view a profile to a user's friends and his friends' friends; paranoid, which turns a user's "wall" off and allows only those who attend the user's college or university to search for him; and custom, which allows a student to set specific privacy settings regarding his account.
"Safety and privacy concerns are one of our top priorities," Hughes said. "At the end of the day, our users have complete control over their information and should only display that which they feel comfortable with."
Though facebook gives its users options to control their privacy, when selecting custom settings, the site "recommends" that when selecting who can view a user's account, that all facebook.com users should be open to this feature.
Vance said even though users can take measures to secure their safety, nobody uses these features.
John Connor, attorney at law for Ball State student legal services, said two potential concerns he sees are libel issues and invasion of privacy,
People put pictures on the site and type descriptions that are libelous, Connor said.
EMPLOYER AWARENESS
Other than students making information available which may be too personal, a relatively new concern has developed involving the information prospective employers are able to find on facebook.com.
According to Ball State's Career Connections Web site, Purdue University conducted a study which revealed that 22.9 percent of employers search for information on candidates using social network sites such as facebook.com, and 68.6 percent of those employers say the information they find, influences their hiring decisions.
Because college facebook.com profiles can be accessed by anyone with a ".edu" e-mail account, prospective employers, alumni, faculty or staff of a college or university can use the site to their advantage.
"I heard somewhere that employers can look at facebook profiles," freshman Jessica Opalak said. "I set my profile so only my friends can see it, and I also took pictures off and removed myself from a couple groups."
In the Jan. 20 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Vance said he was helping administrators at Georgia College and State University develop a class to teach students what information to post on facebook.com and what not to post.
"They [students] need to start thinking about long-term ramifications of what they're putting online today," Vance said in the Jan. 20 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. "I think these online networks are a real good idea, but students haven't thought through how they use them."
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