To be a little bit freaked out how invisible some of my old friends are online?

[NotDead]

Now I am reasonably findable online, and most places I have worked have had me in their Internet etc, but a lot of my old friends just have nothing online at all. . and I really do mean at all at least in terms of my stalking casual enquiries. .

How do they do it? (assuming they are not all dead)??

It's more difficult for women, what with name changes after getting married....surely you can still contact them by email or phone if you want to? Or do you just want to stalk?

not so much that..just wanted to see them. . These are people I have lost with before email and it would take time working through networks to find them and I guess I'm shy about doing that, but that wasn't the motivation for the post.. it was just how do they do that? Also I do wonder if some puerile might have died and no one have told me :(

I was anonymous before I joined FB a few months ago...no one could have found me if they didn't have my email already...I know, 'coz I Googled myself (wondering if that's a done thing)...it wasn't particularly difficult.

Despite not worrying about it and posting all over the place and not caring if my user name and real name are linked, I'm actually fairly invisible online.

The key for me is that my name is really common. Could that be it?

I'm invisible and proud of it. It's simple really, no FB, no twitter, no need for jobs to be online and name change when married.

I am invisible on the net. And that's the way I like it. Hate FB and Twitter and have no desire to splatter my life online with photos for all to see. I prefer to be mysterious.

If I am no longer in touch with someone it's usually for good reason and I want it kept that way.

I'm intentionally invisible :) no FB, Twitter, all that shit, no job (sahm), very few people have my address and phone number, yay!

As a dentist sadly it's impossible. The NHS insist on publishing the clinics you work at and the GDC feel they must let everyone know your address. This info is easily available online despite no FB account

Exactly as Sparkling said.

I've never been customer/ client facing at a high level so I wouldn't appear on business websites. A lot of people don't have those sorts of jobs and if they pick tight security for social media then will be hard to find.

I'm invisible online, it's not difficult at all!

My Job doesn't involve my details being put online and I don't do social networking.....that's it really isn't it

I can be found via the NMC website via my married name but all it tells anyone is what NHS trust I work for! You'd have to be looking and know what I do in the first place...

I'm invisible save for one very convoluted link that requires you to know which university I went to, and when.
No FB, no twitter, job lists me by surname without even an initial, and with no individual contact details.

I am completely invisible to anyone who doesn't know my married name, I just checked out of curiosity.

I am invisible online...no FB, twitter etc.

Invisible as a person. You will find my company easily but my personal details aren't a disclosed on websites. I do have fb but have turned off every setting to find me, so only close friends and family can get through

It's not hard to be invisible.

My twitter name has nothing to do with me.
My FB settings are tight.
I've only worked for large organisations and my name has never been published on their websites. Is someone has a problems with their product they want to find the customer services number, not the names of the engineers.

I can be found via linked in but not under my maiden name. I had a long career break and changed my name but still managed to link to former bosses and colleagues. So I had a visible employment trail to any future employers, that came in useful.

I'm fairly invisible, I have FB but it has very high privacy settings and I'm not searchable. If I google myself, I only come up as a reference on page 4 as a conference attendee in a subject area that is unrelated to my work.

I was invisible until I joined LinkedIn. Not intentionally, I am just not very interesting and my maiden name was very popular (common).

Erm. Yabu!

There is a cohort of people who deliberately choose to be invisible online. I am one. no Facebook, no LinkedIn etc.

I've been on the internet since 1998 but you wouldn't know it. I make it my business to stay private and totally unreachable. It's a bit like being ex directory from the phone book.

"Freaked out" is a little strong. Even in this day and age of high tech there are still a great number of people who want to remain unfindable or invisible. I have a Facebook account, but when you google my name the wrong person comes up. The one that annoys me is the 192.com. How on earth did I end up on there?

if you google my name, my home address comes up because i was a director of dh company, which was registered at our home. I find that very scary.

Ah, that's it. I am a director of OH's company.

I'd say unless you have a professional interest in being accessible, that's a very desirable state.

In fact, although DH and I love our DD's full name, it's completely 100% unique (not a weird name, just a multicultural family so the surname combination is unheard of) which gave us a moment of pause.

We just think the poor girl won't have as much "room to hide", so to speak, as John/Jane Smith.

I'm a company director so I come up on the internet if your search terms are sufficiently specific. Otherwise I'm invisible because my name is not especially unusual - if you Google me you get over 100,000 results and almost none refer to me.

I'm not on Facebook or Twitter and I like it that way. I was on Linked In (boss's orders) but took my profile down after it showed itself to be nothing more than an invitation for loons to get in touch.