My life is an open book, except…

On some social media.

In the interests of protecting my friends, family and any other innocent parties, I have set my information on Facebook to the absolute minimum. If I use another app or Facebook as a login partner for anything I again allow only my public profile composed of my name and the e-mail address used for public things.

I highly encourage anyone using public media to occasionally check their privacy settings: in Facebook fairly easy: on the upper bar to the far right in Firefox at least you will see a small arrow, which will give you a pull-down menu. Choose “settings”, which will pop up a whole list on the right hand side. Review, make changes and save.

Now, I know that using a search engine, anyone in the world can access more information about me than I would perhaps like - the price we pay for living in a world that is "connected". Mostly I don't look as it is rather depressing sometimes to see that jobs from years ago are still mentioned, that one's address is easily found and that if one is willing to pay, one can basically serach an entire life relatively easy. Anonymity has become a very rare commodity.

I have personally chosen to ignore Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn (although I do have accounts I have mainly forgotten the ID I used and the passwords)  and probably many others, but have maintained Facebook as a link to friends and family.

Due to my security settings though I don’t have access to everything as some apps simply want to know too much and I, for one, don’t believe that every app in the world should have access to my friends list nor all the other bits and pieces. If this means that I sometimes can’t take a quiz or see a video, so be it: we all make our choices.