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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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

57 replies

NotDead · 11/10/2013 04:33

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)??

OP posts:

MarshaBrady · 11/10/2013 08:26

I don't do FB and twitter so unless you know me you won't see pics of my family or much information about my life. (My name is there connected to work).

I like it that way.

hugoagogo · 11/10/2013 08:27

I am a little freaked out about how 'visible' some people are online personally.

thesaurusgirl · 11/10/2013 08:28

Sorry, meant to say, a lot of my high profile clients pay search engine optimisation agencies (SEO) to either push them up the Google search results, or obscure them altogether. It's not expensive to be obscured and many rich people do it to avoid security problems or hide how they avoid tax

SamsGoldilocks · 11/10/2013 08:35

I think it's pretty important to be invisible online. My life is my business, not for a relative stranger to gawp at. It amazes me how much people allow others to see.

PortBlacksandByBroomstick · 11/10/2013 08:38

What hugoagogo said.

My twitter account is unrelated to anything other than my interests and none of my friends who have twitter accounts are on it - that's what FB is for. My Facebook account has a few friends and is private and i don't have any companies or interests 'likes 'in my feed - i use twitter for that. My name and business comes out top on google if you google my name but that is my maiden name and anyone who uses me wouldn't associate me with my FB page which is in my married name.

You can see i've thought about this . That said if you try hard enough or know me well enough you could put them all together but i like to keep them seperate. I name change just enough on here a lot too.

That said - i have tried to find an old school friend - he really does seem to have dropped off the planet. He had an unusual name too.

PortBlacksandByBroomstick · 11/10/2013 08:41

Oh and i never put pictures of DH or DCs on Facebook. he's a very private person and they might want to be PM one day

Trills · 11/10/2013 08:42

"Freaked out" is a weird phrase to use.

Confused or surprised, maybe.

Buglugs · 11/10/2013 08:50

If I google myself, all it comes up with is a youtube video of the dog. (Plus some pics of other random people with the same/similar names).

It depends what field you work in for job stuff, privacy settings, whether or not you use twitter etc.

maillotjaune · 11/10/2013 08:51

I was invisible until I joined Linkedin purely to catch up with an old friend who obviously still had my email (so requested contact) although I'd lost theirs.

Not sure why they didn't just email me though

The only details are my job title and university but I've changed my name since then.

MN Talk is about as close as I get to social media.

MarshaBrady · 11/10/2013 08:57

LinkedIn is amazingly good at providing links for anyone you've emailed etc I was surprised at the amount of old contacts it showed me down the side.

I cancelled the account because I do two things and don't want one group to see the other work.

Latara · 11/10/2013 08:59

My name is unusual (I believe i'm the only one with my name in the whole of the UK) so i'm easy to find.

I'm the only person with my name on FB; and somehow I ended up on 192.com (I think it's if you don't tick the privacy box on the electoral register which my dad forgot to do one year when I lived at his house so i'm registered at his address.)

Also i'm on the NMC database.

OneLittleToddleTerror · 11/10/2013 09:13

I'm fairly visible online with my previous job. I was a research fellow at a university. We all have websites and photos. Now I'm just another bot in a large corporation so I'm not online with that.

I think it depends on your job. Other things like social media is your choice.

NoComet · 11/10/2013 09:14

Latara and poppy

Yes it's odd DH and I are pretty invisible because we have very common first and surnames. DH is on linked in and I do a voluntary job, but you'd need to know more than our name to find us.

Where as both are sisters addresses come straight up. Unusual surnames and slightly less common/more unusually spelt first names. Nothing very out there, but enough.

I know DSIS likes having a really simple email, no numbers or anything, but I think being that easy to find would freak me out.

My DDs also have very common names so, quite accidentally, can choose to be harder to trace.

OneLittleToddleTerror · 11/10/2013 09:15

And also I haven't changed my name on marriage.

It's amazing what some of my old schoolmates are up to by looking at their profiles in social network.

Sparklingbrook · 11/10/2013 09:39

Am i a bit weird in that I don't wonder what people i went to school with years ago are doing now? I can barely remember any of their names.

OneLittleToddleTerror · 11/10/2013 09:44

sparklingbrook maybe because your life is interesting and successful? I'm a bit boring so have once or twice looked up what people I know from school are doing. I am fb friends with some of them, so others are my foaf (friend of a friend). I only look those up.

One of them quit law school and is now a famous wig designer for the stars. Stars that I actually know the name of. She just had an exhibition of her work. That's the one I found most fascinating. I'm not that interested in pictures of children and husbands. Got enough of those on my fb newsfeed

OneLittleToddleTerror · 11/10/2013 09:45

And she obviously have had cosmetic surgery. Look so glamorous and different from when she was at school.

MarshaBrady · 11/10/2013 09:45

I'm still in touch with a few friends and someone sent photos from the school reunion. It was funny to see the pics. But in a way it was nicer before just to have the very vague memories from how they were at school.

We did laugh when we both could not remember one guy being at school, at all.

PeppiNephrine · 11/10/2013 09:49

I hope you guys now that while you think you might be "totally invisible" its only on the surface?
Just because an idle google search doesn't throw up a lot doesn't mean thats someone with above basic skills can't find out rather a lot more.

usuallyright · 11/10/2013 09:50

am a bit bemused as to why people are afraid of being found on Google and craving total anonymity. Unless they're on a witness protection scheme or avoiding a nasty abusive ex.
Do you walk down the street with a paper bag over your head? If not, you're out there. Visible to the public.

PeggyCarter · 11/10/2013 09:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MarshaBrady · 11/10/2013 09:51

I don't want to be invisible but I want a google search not to bring up FB first. But my work, which it does.

TEErickOrTEEreat · 11/10/2013 09:57

I forgot to mention that I don't care if I'm invisible and do nothing to be invisible. It's just luck.

I'd actually be rather less invisible, which I'm working on, since I make my living on SM and the internet.

But there's a woman with my name who appears to be semi famous, although I've never heard of her!

TEErickOrTEEreat · 11/10/2013 09:58

Also a male football coach with a name close enough to mine that Google says 'Did you mean ?'

havatry · 11/10/2013 10:06

I'm invisible online even with FB, not particularly intentionally. I have a very common name, having married and taken my dh's surname. There are hundreds of us.

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