'Tis the season and my facebook feed is full of people cavorting on vacation. I’m happy about it, I like to live vicariously through my friends vacation pictures, they are having fun and if I am stuck in a 20 below Minnesota Winter its nice to know someone got to spend Christmas in Mexico.
But, neither my husband or I ever shares vacation plans or vacation pictures on facebook until we return. We don’t check in that we are away from home. There is something about my facebook followers, or his, or our kids, or the friends of friends who can see our status given facebooks ever changing privacy settings knowing that our house is sitting empty for a week while we cavort through the Hawaiian Isles. It seems to say “hey, you - friend of a person I barely know but who I friended because we vaguely worked together two years ago for six months - my house is empty - come rob me.”
I’m the same way-I post until I return for those very reasons. I’ll tell a few trusted online friends in case I’m missed in one of my online communities, so they can say, “She’s fine”, but that’s it.
I like to post on Facebook that I’m going to South America for a couple of weeks. Then I turn off the lights, load up the shotgun, and wait. Heh heh heh…
I already make good use of personalized Facebook groups, so the only people seeing my vacation/ travel plans are actual friends and family. The vague spouse of a coworker from six years ago doesn’t see these posts. To be honest, the security is less of an issue for me, and more about me not wanting to clutter the feeds of more random folks. I like my friends/family knowing, because I appreciate feedback about restaurants, attractions, whatever we might like. And a few times, it’s turned out to be a fun way of meeting up with people if it turns out they will be in the area.
I never post anything while on vacation, either, but that’s mainly because I never bring any Internet-capable devices with me. Most people who notice me on FB already know I am on vacation by the fact that I suddenly stopped posting for a two-week period.
I share- but my house is not empty. Two adult students and a large dog are still there when I’m on vacation. I’d probably share even if that wasn’t true, though, and I’m wondering if I really live differently than a lot of people. First, I live in a city- and by that , I mean there’s five feet between my house and the house next door. I can’t remember when the last burglary in the neighborhood was. But more than that, those “friends of friends” wouldn’t know where I lived. The few coworkers I’m Facebook friends with have only the vaguest idea of where I live. Only my actual friends and family members would know my address- and they’ll know I’m on vacation whether I put it on Facebook or not.
Someone is going to say it’s easy to find an address on the Internet. I’m sure some people’s are. Mine is not. You can probably get it if you pay for it, but long before the internet was popular, I needed to keep my phone number and address out of the hands of my clients, so nothing is listed in my last name. My husband is not on Facebook , we don’t share a name and only close friends and family know both our names. (Not because it’s a secret, just because more distant friends only need/remember the last name of whichever of us they know). So a friend of one of my high school friends is not going to be able to find my house without putting a lot of time/effort into it.
Just saw delphica’s post on preview - a large part of the reason I post vacation info on Facebook is to let my friends and relatives know that I’m going to be in Boston ( I’ve got a few cousins there) and ask them which whale-watching tour they recommend, and they can tell me they work at such and such a club Friday night and can get me in or maybe my cousin from Maine tells me he’ll also be in Boston at that time and we can get together for lunch…
When I’m out somewhere, I don’t put it onto Facebook until I get back. However, when I’m on a business trip, I’ll talk about it, since someone is still at the house.
It’s highly unlikely there’d be any problem, but I like to be sure.
Yep, totally. I went to Greece in October and posted pictures pretty much everyday of the things I was doing along the way. Before I leave, I lock down my Facebook wall so only friends can see it and I suppose it’s possible that one of my friends could rob me, but meh. I’ve traveled to several countries, sharing along the way, and have never had a problem yet.
Mine is actually pretty locked down as well - as in every year I wonder why everyone ELSE gets Happy Birthday posts and I don’t and then its “oh yeah, I’ve locked it down” - but I don’t trust Facebook’s privacy settings. And I’m googleable enough to figure out where I live with a little cross referencing - my husband CERTAINLY is and he has many many more followers.
Ah, I do have the benefit of being the only Facebook user in our house, so if something is on FB, I know it’s going through me. If I think about it enough, though, I’m probably more at risk security-wise with random employees where I work noticing I’m out of the office for two weeks than I am with people on Facebook knowing that I’m on vacation. Not that I think people at my work are a particular risk, but it seems like there are other, easier ways to get info about people being out of town. I wonder if this gets reported a lot – break-ins where it turns out the perp got the idea from Facebook.
I don’t ever check in anywhere until I’m on my way or at home. I didn’t even post about the SO going away on business for a week, but the in laws tagged me in posts asking how I was coping alone, how his flight went, and what he thought of his hotel so there was no chance of keeping it off Facebook. We have a vacation planned this year and I imagine the in laws will splash that all over Facebook unless I manage to convince them not to before we go.
The last thing I’m thinking about when I’m on vacation is updating my Facebook. After I come home and have uploaded my photos to the laptop and am back into my routine of checking in at night, I’ll post a few shots.
Although, there was one place I went last year and “checked in” from a cool little off-the-beaten-path restaurant. I had been curious about the check-in feature and wondered if the place was too obscure to show up when I started typing it, but it did. So I checked in but did nothing more.
This sort of drives me nuts with my mother in law. I made a very conscious decision to let my kids internet identities be theirs - and a very conscious effort about what I share about myself as well. There were NO pictures of them on the internet - I didn’t upload any - at least none where their names were tagged. I never mentioned them in posts - even here when I speak about them I try not to use their real names or real identities. I’m not really worried about pedophiles, I’m more worried about them being allowed to present themselves and control who they are. Then my mother in law joined Facebook and the activities of my children (and me) and photos are plastered all over. And she doesn’t have my privacy settings, but we share acquaintance, which means people I don’t want to know, know what I am doing.