Giving away too much?

Women’s Editor Tracey O’Sullivan is . . . now officially addicted to Facebook and wondering if she might regret it.

Setting your own official status will be a familiar task to fans of the social networking site.

It’s part of the fun and has become a way of keeping up with friends all over the country, not to mention family.

But it’s certainly not getting a good press at the moment and possibly for good reason.

It started as a phenomenon among university students but has quickly spread Ñ I am certainly a few years past that age bracket and was talked into it by my younger sister (a very recent graduate) who at the time of my joining boasted almost 200 friends linked to her profile and 162 photos of her on there.

“It’s not for my age group,” I protested -  relieved in a way to get away with not having to get to know some other new fangled internet gimmick. Ebay has taken years off my life.

And the embarrassement of only ending up with two friends on my profile - so convinced was I that none of my circle would be doing the whole Facebook thing.

I had avoided MySpace and thought bebo was a toy for babies.

But she persisted and surprise, surprise, I found it was proving extremely popular among the thirtysomethings. In fact it’s the new black.

The invites from friends flew in thick and fast and even some cousins I had lost touch with (believe me, in an Irish family that’s easy to do with more than 100 scattered across the world!).

I loved it - it was great. Funny, amusing and a real distraction from everything else that can become so mundane. But it did occcur to me only too quickly the lack of control involved in putting your life on show to the wider public.

Within days there were invites from people I had lost touch with on purpose and people I had met once but would never have considered a friend.

Talking to some equally recent addicts - all in their thirties - they had very different takes on it.

The men, black and white as always, said they would turn down anyone that they wouldn’t want to share a pint with at the local.

But for the girls in the group it seemed more complicated and socially rude to turn down any kind of invite.

Then there were the stories about potential employers scouring the net to check out future candidates.

I may just have ruined any chance of future promotion with that one status which said:

Tracey is in need of champers and lots of it - unfortunately it was posted at 11am on a weekday morning. Not exactly a box ticked for perfect employee.

Another friend congratulated me on buying her a beer at 10.58am. (For those of you who don’t know your Facebook functions are recorded on a regular newsfeed which you can hide but that’s if you remember to do it)

Honestly, it was a virtual bar - I swear it my Lord.

Luckily my computer at work doesn’t have the capacity to run Facebook so I am not tempted to log in during working hours - that often.

But another friend working on the fashion pages of a national title was hauled into the editor’s office after she was spotted buying some more of those virtual cocktails

Having said that the editor had to back down when later in the week she tracked down the new Dolce & Gabbana model (he in the little white pants who must be adored) for an exclusive interview using Facebook.

But forget the exclusive Ñ she was more excited at having a wall poster from the adonis himself.

Then there is the potential to use this site at far too young an age to be aware of its ramifications. I didn’t necessarily have to prove who I was or even that the picture I used for my profile was me.

My sister is a Keele University graduate and they were warned off after students started posting abusive comments about lecturers.

During my discussion with my Facebook friends we decided that using it for fun while not divulging too much personal information was the way forward. But will everyone see it the same way - are we creating our own Big Brother all by ourselves? And who will we blame if we do?