While Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with your friends and family, it also has its dark, less attractive side. Facebook can be the cause of many unfortunate events in life, and it’s important to know what causes them and how to avoid them while using the website.
Image credit: Stuart Miles | FreeDigitalPhotos.net
These are six ways in which Facebook can come back to haunt you.
Facebook causes relationship problems
How many times have you seen a fight born out of jealousy and romantic woes break out on Facebook? Too many times, more than likely.
According to DailyMail, the more a partner in a relationship uses Facebook, the higher the chance there is that they will monitor the other partner’s activity, a ritual that can easily become habitual and spark jealousy. That’s just unhealthy for any relationship.
Facebook use could hinder job performance
Check your friend list on Facebook at any time for online activity, and there’s a high chance that many of your friends will be active at any given time. This means that it’s likely that many people use Facebook even while they are at work.
If Facebook, or social media in general, hinders a person’s job performance to the point where they are noticeably not conducive to the company’s growth, this could end in a termination of their job.
Peter Cohan estimated in 2012 that Facebook is slicing American work productivity by 9.4%, therefore compromising $1.4 trillion in American GDP.
The job background search
It’s quite common for employers to perform background searches in order to identify a person’s moral compass, but many more businesses are taking to social media to get a basic idea about job applicants.
In some cases, employers can use social media, Facebook especially, to terminate employees. VerySeriousStuff.com outlines an incident where a bank intern lost his job due to calling in sick, yet later posting pictures of himself at a Halloween costume party.
Your Facebook could be used as evidence
Even if you have committed a crime, law enforcement can tap into your Facebook to find additional details and more possibly incriminating information that can add jail time to your sentence.
Dr. Phil’s website outlines a specific case where a young man’s Facebook photos were used as evidence to add jail time to his sentence for drunk driving.
Insurance agencies stalk your Facebook
Creeped out? Personal injury lawyers from Bronson Jones & Co. in Vancouver confirm that insurance companies aggressively seek to weed out the phony claims. If you’ve made a significant claim recently, you can count on insurance company investigators to hunt your Facebook to verify that your claims are legitimate.
Far too many individuals have faked or exaggerated claims and received insurance benefits fraudulently. Many are dumb enough to post pictures on Facebook before or after the incident that prove they lied to the insurance company.
Sharing too much information
One of the final concerns with Facebook is that it has become all too commonplace to share incredibly personal information that could easily wind up in the wrong hands.
Facebook recently introduced a feature entitled “Nearby Friends” that allows Facebook users to see where other users are located directly on a map (that is, if they opt to share this information). This information, when in the wrong hands, can lead to a number of unfortunate situations.
hannah whittenly
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