I have my FB account locked down tight, and it is a good idea to check your privacy settings regularly. For some of my family this is really the only way we connect with each other - our schedules are so opposite each other...

I only have 54 "friends" - but I know every last one of them and they are, indeed, friends and family. I still won't post anything really personal - I pretty much limit things to cycling updates and links that I like. I suspect that my non-cycling friends and family (most of the 54) are convinced I am a little nutty where cycling is concerned, but that is fine

As with any website of any kind, nothing in the internet every has been or ever will be "private". Especially with social networking sites of any kind, it pays in the long term to remember this...

To illustrate, I can still find emails to a list I subscribed to back in the late 1980's when I was much younger and quite rebellious! Thankfully no one knows that was ME My user names/email addys were far more creative in those years, fortunately.

I am quite thankful that the content from the old bulletin boards (pre-www protocol days) no longer exists, though they were quite fun at the time!