Most of us put our full name, location and our age on our social networking page. Some of us even add our phone numbers, full addresses and where we work. We have no qualms in letting the world know, on a daily basis, what we plan to do for the day.

Some people also post their likes and dislikes, their movie and music interests and what they like to do on the weekends. They may even have photos of themselves and their friends out every other weekend, glasses in hand, having a great time.

So what?

Firstly you are putting yourself personally at risk. Most people on the internet are just like you and are only interested in using social networks for the use they were intended for. However there are also people out there who will malicously use your information for no other reason then they can.

Secondly, all that information makes it easier for spammers and advertisers to target you. Ever wonder how google or facebook know what adds to show you? It's because they are using the information from your profiles and emails to target advertisements at you. While this might be fine now, what if they start posting things to your house, or if a spammer gets hold of that information.

Then there is the risk of your information being stored and distributed by the site you have signed up to. This information that belongs to you, that you believe only Bebo, Facebook or Myspace will ever see may one day be sold. Or hacked. There are security breaches on major websites every day. Governments across the world routinely loose intelligence and private data. What is to say your information is safe forever?

Finally and most importantly there is the yet. Young people are the biggest users of most social networking sites and they post the most revealing information about themsleves. Think about everything that you post on your profile page. Would you like your teachers/lecturerers/employers seeing that photo of you drunk in a nightclub on a week night? All they probably have to do is google your name.

Employers are already checking the social networking profiles of job candidates. While it might be fun to post photos of your drunken antics those photos and comments remain on the internet even after you delete them.