Top 3 Things You Should Never Say on Social Media

In today's Tech World, we're prone to oversharing the details of our life.  We don't think twice about sharing details about our lives in little bite sized chunks on Facebook.  Or in 140 characters or less on Twitter.  Or in photos that capture a little tiny piece of time on Instagram.

But add it all up and you could have just shared your way into becoming a victim of identity theft, stalking, or even worse.



And it's not just what we're posting about ourselves.  The profiles of some of our favorite social media sites are ASKING for it!  They give us a line for our hometown, they allow us to make the year we were born public, etc.

So what's a tech user to do?  In this post, let's look at the top 3 things we should NEVER say in Social Media.  We'll look at more later - because trust me, this topic cannot be covered with 3 quick bullet points!  So let's just consider today's post the tip of the iceberg.  As you're reading this list, see if you can figure out what all 3 things have in common.  I tell you at the end, but it's more fun if you have to try and guess along the way :)

Top 3 Things You Should Never Say on Social Media:

1. Your Date of Birth.  OK, OK, I know - it's fun to get all the birthday wishes flooding in on Facebook.  So go ahead, list your month and day.  But don't make the year public.  I see so many people who are still listing it.

2. Your home address.  One would think this would be obvious.  Most people are smart enough not to make this information public, but I hear many people tell me that they only make it available to their "friends."  But come on - how many of you can truly say you know EACH one of the people on your "friends" list?  And even if you DO know them all, are you positive that they are who they say they are?  Feel free to share your vicinity, but keep your actual address out of it.

3.  Your hometown.  Sure, it's fun to let everyone see where you're from.  But when you're displaying your city and state of birth, did you know that this information can be used to obtain your social security number?

So did you guess what all three of these things have in common?  If you guessed that any of these can lead to identity theft, you're right.  Of course, any of the three individually would make it tough to use to steal your identity.  Tough - but not impossible.  But add these three things together and you've virtually given an identity thief the keys to your identity's safe.

Of course, since we're talking about identity theft, I'm sure you already know that unshredded paperwork poses the biggest threat.  So you may be thinking - "Hey, no one is out there just waiting to use my social media profile as a way to hack into more credit!"  To which I say - yeah, you're probably right.  I mean, it makes much more sense that someone is out there dumpster diving as opposed to sitting behind their computer, right?  (And if you didn't pick up the sarcasm on that, let me assure - it's there!!)

So keep these 3 details off of your social media profiles.  We'll look at more details you shouldn't share next time.

Stay Safe,
Jacki