The Internet has made it easier than ever to find people and stay in touch. Unfortunately, it has also made it easier for people to find you and monitor your every movement. Now a days, a stalker doesn’t even have to leave the house to know where you are and what you are doing. You might not even notice inappropriate behavior from your until it has gotten out of hand. After all, social media in general is semi creepy. When someone wishes you happy birthday every year, that’s normal. If they like a picture, that seems harmless. Then you notice they like your locations, all of your pictures and sending you messages every day. It’s nice to get attention and social media is the best way to get it instantly, but when the attention is unwanted, it’s time to set some boundaries to help stop cyberstalking before it starts.
The Over Attentive Friend
Over commenting is a big no no. Yes, it is nice to have attentive friends. When you have that weak moment and post a tweet about your bad day, it’s great to have your friends comfort you. When you post a status about food, however, you don’t necessarily need a novel about what they are eating or what you ought to be eating instead. You probably didn’t need them to like each and every picture you’ve posted in the past few days…or all the ones from three years ago.
The kinds of people who are over attentive to your life are normally dissatisfied with their own. They’re living vicariously through you. It isn’t harmful, but it is annoying. In this case, they simply have to be managed. Try throwing out some crowd sourcing posts. Instead of making your posts or pictures about you, make them about topics anyone and everyone would be interested in contributing to. Something like “Who has some new music to listen to?” Then your friend’s comments will blend in with everyone else’s. Best of all, the most has nothing to do with you. If they are interested in learning more about someone they find interesting, they’ll have to find someone else cause this book is closed!
The Chatty Friend
We’ve all been mindlessly scrolling through Facebook at inappropriate in the morning when “BAM” someone Facebook chats you. Most of the time you don’t even notice that little bar of available friends to chat up, so it is all the more surprising when some of the most random, only friends with them on social media out of obligation people decide this is the moment to talk. You oblige them, then get off and do something normal like…you know…sleep.
Then, the very next time you get online there they are again ready and raring to talk. Just like the over attentive friend, you can manage them with some your technological savvy. Facebook includes a feature where you are able to create friends list. These friends can see you are available to talk but no one else is. Go invisible and move on.
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