This week I received an invitation from a friend to check out his Facebook profile. I must admit that even though I work in the computer field I have not been tempted to join Facebook or other social networking sites. I have all I can do to keep up with the telephone, the cell phone and the e-mail.

I decided to check out this friend’s page since he sent me an invitation. Before I could see the good part of his information I had to join Facebook. So I did. I must admit I was curious to see what information I could find out about my friend. The first thing I noticed was the fact that he was faceless. Faceless on Facebook I thought was kind of cute. His children and young relatives all have their pictures on his site when they were listed as friends so we can see what they look like.

In case you don’t know Facebook is a social networking website. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school or region. It is a way to keep in contact with friends, network for business and meet new people. I don’t have it all down yet but I am working on it. After all I may find some people that I have been trying to find for years.

Let’s get back to faceless. I will watch his Facebook page with interest. He is older than I am and he was a former cop. I suspect that he might remain faceless. I am also faceless. I am not sure I will remain faceless, after all my picture is in the newspaper every week. I noticed that many people my age are faceless on Facebook.

I am uncomfortable with this Web site. I am uncomfortable with this website because of my age and because of my occupation. I am old enough to be concerned about privacy. Anything I put on Facebook will be there even when I am dead and buried. It will live forever in the realm of cyberspace. Of course, I suppose my column might live forever in cyberspace too, but I feel a Web site like Facebook is different. When you are in a social situation and that is what Facebook is, you have a tendency to throw caution to the wind and chat about whatever you want. If you are having a bad day and blurt it out or post a picture that you posted when you have a bad day those words will live forever.

I already have admitted I am old. I have a busy schedule and Facebook is just one more thing to do. I will also admit that I will probably get sucked into the Facebook community at some point.

I received a letter from my bank this week. Apparently I need to return my debit cards because the account has been compromised wherever they store my information. That takes another bite of my time because of the new way we do our banking. I spent two hours with the Dish Network for technical service on a recent Saturday and my problem still is not resolved. I used to call the local TV Repair man. Calling the TV Repairman was much easier.

Google your name and see what you come up with. It is very interesting. I googled someone’s name one time with their permission and I happened to come up with my husband’s family tree which was online. I was surprised. Google picked up our family tree when I googled his name because this man’s business buried one of my husband’s family members.

We can look up medical records, criminal records, birth certificates, housing information and possibly the movie we saw last week if we told someone about it on FaceBook. If you lose your memory, Google yourself and you will find out many things about your life.

I receive e-mails every week from places such as reunion.com and classmates.com. Someone is looking for me. To find out who is searching for me I need to sign up and cough up some money. Most of the people the sites have told me are looking for me already know where I am. Why would I give these sites money so someone who already knows where I am and has my address can find me? It is baffling to me.

I won’t lie, I love the internet and computers but I am increasingly worried about the lack of privacy we now live with. Perhaps the younger generation will not be concerned because they have not known the world of privacy as it once was. As for those of us that are old and faceless on Face Book we have to possibly accept that this is the way it is. Having that acceptance means becoming knowledgeable about the new electronic world so that we can understand iti so that we are safer.

Yet in all this information there are some people that can’t be found. I recently received an email from a reader in New Jersey. He has searched high and low for a Jean Berge that used to reside in Albert Lea. She was a former classmate of this reader at the University of Minnesota. He is writing his memoirs and would like to get in touch with her. If any of you know of this lady, please e-mail me. I will not give her information to this person until I contact her and get her permission. We will see if simple technology like a column can find this person.

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send e-mail to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net.