Social Media as Stalking

I think it is intersting to consider social media websites as a form of stalking, because they are definitely changing the scope of what we consider to fall under that category. If someone was legitimately a stalker, there were other ways in the past that they would go about it. But now with websites such as Facebook, it would be extremely easy for a stalker to collect information about his/her victim, including pictures and if the person isn't careful with their information, location and school. What is changing today simply because of Facebook, is that normal people innocently conduct what may have in the past been considered stalking. It is commonplace in the era of Facebook for people to surf around other people's pages looking at their everyday activities through statuses, posts, and pictures. Thankfully there are ways to make Facebook safer, but few people utilize them to their full potential. Privacy settings help you limit the people who can view your facebook page, and there is educational material out in the world that teach kids not to put information online such as your full name, phone number, address, and school.
This is a very important topic for me to have a full understanding of as a future teacher. It will be largely my responsibility to educate my students about the dangers of the social media websites, as well how to use them as safely as possible. Also, due to the fact that the prominence of these sites is bound to become even greater by the time I have a class of my own, I want to be sure to be as educated as possible and be a good influence on my students.

Here I have included a link to an article in the Washington Post that is about stalking on Facebook. The fact that there are articles such as this one in legitamate news sources really shows how important the subject has become in the world.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/03/AR2009120303647.html