So, my lovely and ever-so-thoughtful father made me watch Criminal Minds last night. For those of you who don’t know, Criminal Minds is an American police drama that follows a team of profilers from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. They focus on the criminal rather than the crime itself. Needless to say, he didn’t have to twist my arm too hard, as I am a huge fan of those crime shows – CSI, Law & Order, NCIS, etc. However, this episode of Criminal Minds hit a little close to home.

This episode centered on a serial killer who found his victims through social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter. He finds women that fit a certain profile, follows them, friends them, stalks their every move. And the women? They make it easy for him. They list where they are, what they’re doing, who their with, etc. He gains enough information from them in order to know how to get into their lives. He pretends to be a cable guy, gets into their homes, sets up cameras throughout the house, and at an unexpected but highly planned time, he breaks into their home, and murders them. The fact that he live streams the murder over the Internet, is somewhat irrelevant – just adds to his total creepiness.

This. This is my biggest fear when it comes to social media. I am highly active online – Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, my blog. I am all over the Internet.

It is thought that social networks are inherently narcissistic. They are all about you and what you’re doing and you somehow think that you are so great that some people are truly interested in what you’re doing. That argument is for a whole other blog post, but what is the reality of that assumption is that you don’t know who is watching you. You don’t know who is following on Twitter all the time. You don’t know who is watching, because frankly, anyone can be watching you and you could never know.

And, with the new Facebook privacy settings that have everyone all riled up, people are becoming more aware of the implications of using these social networking sites incorrectly. The truth is, if you choose to be active on social networking sites like I have, it is your own responsibility to look out for your privacy. People are too trusting and too lazy to take the proper precautions when it comes to online privacy.

You can be careful and diligent with preserving online privacy as I have (and will step it up after watching that damn show). Here are a few tips:

Go through your Facebook Privacy Settings

You can control who can see your photos, videos, and who can post on your wall. You can control who can contact you on Facebook and see your contact information and email. You can control whether your friends, tags and connections display on your profile. You can control who can see your search result on Facebook and in search engines. You can control what information is available to Facebook-enhanced applications and websites. You can control who can interact with you on Facebook.

Be careful with what you Tweet

Twitter doesn’t offer privacy settings other than making your entire profile private – requiring your approval for each and every follower you obtain. For those of you (like me) who don’t want their profile private, just be careful. Think before you tweet.

Choose your location wisely

Location-based apps are terrifying. They let everyone know where you are. Choose your Foursquare/Gowalla friends wisely. Only post check-ins to your Twitter account when you actually want people to know where you are. For me, that’s just highly public places. Don’t check in to your house. Duh. Sometimes I even wait to check in somewhere as I’m leaving.

Use common sense

The Internet moves fast. Trust me, I know. But stop and think before you post something online. Once it’s online, it’s there forever. Make sure it’s really something you want the world to know. And, unfortunately, the world just might include some serial killers.

How do you keep your online lives private?