The Anatomy of a Facebook Stalker

Anyone who has a Facebook has probably dealt with Facebook stalkers at some point. These are the people who are on your friends list and who seem to know every little detail about you, who send constant messages your way to which you rarely respond, and who slowly but surely force their way into your life when you never really wanted them in the first place.

Most Facebook stalkers are simply harmless, lonely people looking for a friend. Some can go beyond that, however, and actually develop into the dangerous kind. Watch out especially if you have a nasty breakup and choose not to remove your ex from your Facebook page.

The Means of the Stalking
There are a number of methods a stalker can use to keep track of you. Many of these are seemingly innocuous, and yet can give much more access to your information that you know.

The Facebook Stalker Looks at Your Pictures: The single biggest tool in the Facebook stalker's arsenal is the Photos application. Millions of photos are passed back and forth day to day via Facebook, and your Facebook stalker can look through them all to learn details about your personal life. The places you go, the activities you enjoy, and all of your friends are reflected in these photo albums. The particularly dangerous stalkers can even start grabbing information like street addresses, license plate numbers, and other pertinent information from photos that you do not want them to have.

The Facebook Stalker Keeps Track of Your Status updates: Most 15-25 year olds are not discerning in what they publish as status updates. Your status can become a window into the things you do, the emotions you are feeling, and the relationships that are on the rocks: all information that can be manipulated by the Facebook stalker. Think through the information that you post as your status, and if you don't want your stalker to know the information, don't post it.

The Facebook Stalker Uses Your Info page: When people sign up for Facebook for the first time, they often enter in all of the information that it requests, and that information is posted on a page that is public to all their friends. This is ok if all of the people who are on your friend list are people you are comfortable with having your information, but not if you have added every person you have ever met and their friends to your personal friend list.

Try to keep information like your phone number, email, likes and dislikes, address, etc. off of this info page. All of it is dangerous in the wrong hands. Even if your information is only available to your friends, your stalker could still slyly ask someone who is your friend on Facebook for the information that you have posted publicly.

How to Deal with the Facebook Stalker
First, everyone needs to realize that you do not need to accept every single person who sends you a friend request. A higher friend count does not indicate that you are really more popular or well-loved. It means you are desperate for friends, and that you are willing to sacrifice your standards to have a list of distant acquaintances rather than actual friends.

Try to make sure that you have at least one significant, FOND memory of a person when you accept her as a friend, or you are seeking to establish one. Be discerning in who you allow into your circle.

Never be afraid of removing a person from your friend list either, especially if that person has begun to harass you. It may hurt their feelings, but their hurt feelings are secondary to your safety and security.

Remember always that Facebook is a public forum, not the safe place that many imagine it to be. Hold your cards close to your hand, and always be careful with the information that you share. Keep yourself safe from Facebook stalkers, and you will have much more peace of mind.