I asked a student recently if he used Twitter. His response was that Twitter was useless and he preferred Facebook. I asked the student next to him the same question and she replied that she uses Twitter all the time and connects her Twitter account to her Facebook status updates and enables geo-tagging to update her location to Twitter – she was in the 9th Grade.

This week has been exciting in Vancouver, a number of events shaping this city with thousands of tourists, dignitaries, police and locals bumping into one another.

I bumped into Tony Hawk the legendary skateboarder today; he’s much taller in person than on television.

I used this event to ponder how many people were conversing via social media at that given moment, sending pictures, updating Facebook and Flickr while trying to absorb all the action occurring around the Winter Olympics.

In this moment, I recognised that the world was literally everywhere and their homes were incredibly open and connected to the moments we were all experiencing. I recalled my conversations with those students and feared that their exuberance and connectivity may not be creating the same happy moments in the long term.

Who was following their tweets or status updates?

Who was reviewing the pictures without knowing the person who was uploading the content in person?

I have been delivering a message of online privacy awareness for the past few years and I have seen fantastic results in my work but I reviewed my thoughts today the same way I do every day, in a proactive and protected thought process where I minimize my risk of becoming a victim.

I invite you to take a look at www.pleaserobme.com - A website designed to review content on Twitter and Foursquare that purposely reveals how a person makes their world vulnerable, where they welcome a number of paths to becoming a victim and where our social networking world has taken a disturbing turn.

I have always challenged my audiences to review their habits and comments online and look at the vulnerability they are becoming available to. Although this website is delivering a tongue-in-cheek message, it has shown the world a very scary possibility for the social media we love and at times abuse.

If we lock our doors, cancel newspaper deliveries, let the neighbours know we’re out of town and ask for a mail pick-up, what happens when our children post to Facebook and Twitter that we have left the home and won’t return for a week or a few days, or even a few hours for that matter?

How do we stay safe while staying connected?

I welcome your thoughts.

Jesse Miller

www.millerconsultingservices.ca