There a man life lessons to be learned from television series How I Met Your Mother — from how to craft the perfect “get psyched” mixed CD, to finding out that nothing good happens after 2 a.m. However, my most recent favorite comes from the “Mystery vs. History” episode where Ted and his date promise not to do any secret research online about one another prior to their first date.

Lesson #45 – Don’t Facebook Stalk A First Date

As much as we may not want to admit it, Facebook has become an integral part of the college experience. We use our profiles to track our lives and the lives of others’ and more importantly, we do it all the time. At this point, social media stalking has become second nature. So when the guy in your sociology class finally asks you out, you almost can’t help but look him up on every social media platform you can think of. Read More »

Right now, America is experiencing economic hardships. Times so tough that even our multi-million dollar making, jump shot shooting, around-the-rim slam dunking NBA ballers can’t even catch a break! Diehard fans’ worst nightmare has officially come to fruition: the NBA lock-out is here.

Here’s the low-down on the lock-out, for those of you who don’t know: players don’t want to concede to more pay cuts, but managers and owners don’t want to (or can’t afford to) give players the salaries they think they are owed. Until they get what they demand, professional athletes are going to act like my 12-year-old sister and pout.

Fine. Be babies, guys. Not like I wanted to wear my Knicks jersey anytime soon.

Then, I had an awesome idea. What if our larger-than-life athletes – instead of stomping their feet and throwing a temper tantrum – got on with their lives in lieu of the lockout? I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out on this one. College kids know way better than anyone what to do when you’ve got nothing to do, right? And college girls know how the best activities. I mean, really…who wants to sit around playing video games all day, guys? Read More »

A little while ago, we conducted The Most Epic Facebook Survey Ever. We asked you guys about everything from how annoying sonogram photos in your newsfeed are, to how many of you have broken up with someone simply by changing your status. We also asked you about Facebook stalking (don’t act like you’ve never done it). If you took the survey, you’ll know that we asked you to define Facebook stalking.

And you guys gave us weird, creepy, hilarious and wacky answers. We learned that some of you are really weird and will probably be arrested soon if you continue your stalking ways, and we learned that some of you are practically undercover detectives when it comes to finding info on your crushes and exes.

Here are 50 ways you guys defined Facebook stalking. Read More »

Seventeen continues to perturb me in ways that Glamour never has. I just can’t get over the one-dimensional messages this magazine is sending to girls. Maybe my pearl-clutching is a little out of hand, but it makes me nervous that right there on the cover is the tagline “Hair & Makeup Ideas That Make You Instantly Prettier!” Like teenage girls don’t face enough pressure in regards to conforming and being pretty in their every day lives. That said, I do appreciate that most of the girls who appear in the fashion spreads aren’t preternaturally pretty and actually look like girls you’d see wandering around a high school.

The relationship advice is mostly pretty harmless. Their section that is dedicated to getting inside the male mind was pretty standard, although I wish they would have included a snarky comment next to the guy who says he’s always thinking of ways to go even further sexually – stay classy, William, aged 19. Their quiz asking, “Do Guys Think You’re Desperate,” though, was way too harsh! Read More »

Okay ladies, so here’s something you didn’t know.

People are looking at your social networking profiles.

Shocked, right? Not so much? Yeah, I thought so. But you might actually be shocked to find out that 80% of admissions officers are now using Facebook to learn more about their applicants, and that a student’s social media presence does in fact affect their decisions.

As a way to counteract this, some admissions officers suggest that applicants like or follow their college of choice on Facebook or Twitter and use the social network as a way to stand out amongst applicants. But would you really want your potential college to have access to everything you post on Facebook? And should they really expect to? When you post something on the internet publicly you have to expect that people will read it. But should you expect that your college admissions officer will be searching for it? Should you expect that every college admissions officer is going to Facebook stalk every applicant now?

Read More »

There was lots of Facebook drama in the news last week when we found out that the new Breakup Notifier was kicked off the site. (Now if only my mother could get kicked off the site….)

The “Breakup Notifier” let you take a bunch of your friends that are listed as in a relationship and plug them into the app. If and when they changed their relationship status, the app would e-mail you to let you know. It was stalking made simple.

Even though we thought this app was an amazing/creepy idea, it still didn’t solve all of our Facebook woes. There’s still some work to be done — and now that some space in the app market has cleared up, we had a few ideas of our own. Read More »

Here on CollegeCandy we spend a lot of time warning you ladies about keeping your Facebook private. Change your settings. Change them again. Now change them back.  We try to keep up with Zuckerberg and the boys, but even we didn’t think of this one, and trust me, you didn’t either.

Because apparently that creeper sitting next to you in Calc class might still be able to get all of your Facebook information if you’re using a wireless network to access the internet. Which, on a college campus, or in an internet cafe, or you know, anywhere, you probably are.

Websites like Gmail use “encrypted HTTPS protocol” to prevent this from happening. They secure all of your information by encrypting your login cookies and the rest of your data. But Facebook? Not so much. So even though that random older dude staring at you from behind his laptop in Starbucks can’t read that e-mail you’re sending your professor, he might still be able to see that Facebook message you’re  sending your boyfriend. According to Gawker.com, one blogger sat down at a local Starbucks and was able to steal 20-40 Facebook identities in 30 minutes with the help of a program called Firesheep. The inventor claims to have created the software to encourage companies like Facebook to lock down their systems, and apparently Facebook is finally listening.

[editors note: SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) allows all of the data that you send over the internet to be encrypted. If an unwanted guest (we'll use the word Hacker), decides that he/she wants to "sniff traffic," or collect all of the information that goes back and forth between peoples laptops at a Starbucks, means that every single laptop in that Starbucks that isn't over a secure connection, is vulnerable to having their data collected (user names, passwords, credit card information, cookies, etc). While this is a scary thought, keep in mind that you can protect yourself by logging into websites that utilize SSL (that extra 's' that you'll see after 'http' which online banks most always use by default).]

Their secure browsing program is launching today, and it will apparently take “a few weeks” to get to everyone. But you should check every day until you have this option and then enable it immediately.

Here’s what you need to do: Read More »

None of these people are my friends and I now know they have a love for our favorite sparkley vampire

OK, so I don’t want to beat a dead horse here/lecture you like your dad, but that’s what I’m about to do. And you’re gonna like it.

Today’s lecture:

You have to be careful about what you’re putting online.

I know, I know – we’ve said it a bajillion times on CollegeCandy. And yeah, I know you’ve set your Facebook privacy settings and re-set them every time Zucks makes a change that leaves you more exposed than that time you thought you locked the bathroom door at the frat party and you got caught squatting with your lady bits out, but I have just learned that none of that matters. Thanks to some holes in Facebook security, it is possible for anyone (even if they’re one of those weird people who don’t have Facebook accounts…seriously, WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!) to search for anyone’s status updates.

And someone set up a website to do just that.

I’m taking all status updates. From the just-for-my-fellow-drunken-BFFs “Just downed a bottle of tequila, dropped my cell in the toilet and now we’re going streaking” to the only-people-who-know-me-and-would-never-rob-me-can-see-this “Hitting up Mexico with the fam for 2 weeks! HOTNESS,” it’s all out there for everyone with an internet connection to see. Oh and don’t worry, you don’t even have to post the status – it brings up any status with your name in it, as well as showing all results for your name. Read More »

I, like every other college student, spend a fair amount of time on the ‘book, from creating party events, to shameless stalking of ex boyfriends, and of course, rick rolling people like it’s my job (never gonna give you up!). There’s nothing wrong with that; I mean, that’s what Facebook is for.

Unfortunately, as Facebook becomes more and more pervasive, for some people it’s becoming less of a place to post pictures and musings from their lives and more a place to actually live them. Remember the groom who posted on Facebook during his wedding? Funny? A sign of the times? Yeah, but also a little bit pathetic. And that doesn’t even hold a candle to these most recent Facebook updates…. Read More »

[It's pretty obvious that the average CollegeCandy reader has some very strong opinions. Opinions that she likes to share with everyone on the site. Sometimes with mean words. We love a strong woman (unless she happens to be charging at us with her fists raised), so we thought we'd give her a real forum to discuss her thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Every Friday I'll be featuring a hot topic (like transgender basketball players!) and leaving it up to you, the readers, to duke it out. So, read it and get your debate on in the comments section below!]

Who among us has never Facebook stalked? Anyone? Seriously, anyone? It’s easy and mostly harmless, so we all do it a little bit sometimes to see how much less awesome your ex’s new girlfriend is than you, or to find out if that cutie in you American Lit class is single (and into women). It’s not a big deal, right? But when does it cross the line? According to research, one third of women check their significant other’s web browser history to see what their partners been surfing and 1 in 10 has actually hacked into their SO’s email and personal accounts to keep an eye on them. Is this just a natural extension of our tech savvy, in-everybody’s-personal-business lives, or has technology turned us into creepy Fatal Attraction candidates?

On one side, I totally get it. You’re using your guy’s laptop and the history is right there, so easy to check; it’s the exact same allure that draws guys to want to know what we carry in our purses. It’s probably not that most of these women are checking to see if their guy is frequenting online dating sites or creepy fetish porn; more than likely it’s nothing more than simple curiosity, the same way you check out what’s on someone’s bookshelf to see what they like to read. The email thing, I have a little harder time with, but still, if there’s an insecurity there and a quick peek will make a girl feel better, then as long as the guy doesn’t have anything to hide, what’s the big deal?

Read More »