Technology

Over the weekend I was grabbing lunch with my dad when, without doing anything, a notification popped up on my phone from Facebook telling me a friend of mine was just down the street. Supposedly, the alert was part of a little thingajig Facebook tried out called "Find Friends Nearby." The creepy tool allowed users to see which of their buddies was in their nearby radius.

Yeah, like I said -- it's a little creepy. Actually, it's hella creepy. Apparently, I'm not the only person that thinks so. Looks like Facebook's already gotten rid of the feature because users everywhere got spooked. Smart move, Zuckerberg.

On a personal tip, when it comes to checking in, I do it because I like to keep track of where I've been. Do I want that information broadcasted to all of my friends? Not exactly. I'm thinking this whole "Find Friends Nearby" snafu is the perfect example of social media being a little too aggressive. Do we have ANY privacy anymore?

These days being active on social media is pretty much as common as breathing. If you go for longer than a week without posting to sites like Facebook or Twitter, people begin to wonder if everything's OK. Now, the same holds true for checking in. People everywhere are getting used to knowing exactly where their friends are all the time, and to be honest with you, it's starting to freak me out.

I get it, it's part of the way society works these days. However, I think it's about time that everyone exhales. Maybe just for a day, we need to put the phone down. Maybe we need to all be in the moment a bit more, appreciate our surroundings, and pay more attention to the current situation instead of the Twitter situation.

In actuality, do I think I'll ever stop checking in? Probably not. But one thing's for sure: if I WANT you to know that I'm right around the corner from your apartment, I'll tell you, not Facebook.

Are you tuned in to social media? Does checking in freak you out?

Image via lululemonathletica/Flickr