Okay, ladies, so here’s the deal.

On Friday, Facebook will become owner of the publishing rights of all your private photos, which means they could do whatever they want with them. Use them in ads. (Imagine a picture of you partying with your peeps on a billboard.) Show them to the world when you become famous. Send them to your boss when you complain about Facebook while on Facebook…

You get the idea. If Facebook owned the rights to your photos it would be bad. Really bad. But you can prevent this. And it will only take a few moments of you time. Just follow the simple instructions below and then pass the information on to all of your friends that have pictures of you. Especially pictures of you from Spring Break. Or tailgates. Or Halloween. Or, well, just everyone, OK?

1. Go to account on the upper right corner of your Facebook.

2. Then click on account settings.

3. Then go to Facebook Ads, the last tab along the top.

4. Then choose edit third party ad settings.

5. Select no one from the drop down.

Then just save and you’re done. You and your Facebook photos are safe. Phew. That was a close one.

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 »

Just when we all thought Facebook was ruining everything, the social media network launches a new version of Groups – and it is actually good for things more than simply clogging our invites inbox and cluttering our profile pages (do I really feel more connected to anyone by joining ‘All the Lee’s of the World’?!). Facebook Groups is another amazing reason to remain an active social media-holic while somehow still getting work done:

Friend organization and productivity. Different from the older version of Groups, this new feature lets us categorize our friends for the purpose of mass messaging, photo and event sharing, and custom privacy settings (similar to the Friend Lists) Yet those days of Facebook were so unproductive – now, groups can edit documents together. This is good news for those inevitable collaboration projects in class since the slackers can no longer get by with the excuse, “I didn’t get that email…”

Group news feed and notifications. Because your default news feed is already flooded with drunk status updates and virtual PDA between a pair of high school sweethearts, Groups has a separate feed fit for members only. This allows people to post content relevant to the group in place where people will actually read it, and notification preferences can be set so that your iPhones aren’t constantly lighting up mid-lecture when your friends are all online.

Read More »

There are a few unspoken rules that make it acceptable for you see your best friend’s (or guy friend’s) bare ass in certain situations: a dare, a (drunken) hookup, a music festival, or on amateur night at a strip bar.

But in the shower? That might be going a little too far, and one Green Mountain College student agrees. Jennifer Weiler, a Green Mountain freshman, is suing her school for a lack of girls-only bathrooms. And homegirl’s making a pretty good case. I mean, I can count on about three fingers the amount of people I know who would feel comfortable stripping down and jumping in the shower with strangers and hall-mates of the male persuasion. Especially if nothing sexual was being followed.

Some say, “Don’t knock it till you try it,” but I’m pretty sure I don’t need to try showering with my R.A. to know it’s not going to go down well. Read More »

It was just another daily Facebook-check when a message from Mark Zuckerberg appeared on the top of my newsfeed. Blah, blah, blah. Shut up, shut up, shut up. We know there are millions of users on Facebook – my mother is on it for God’s sake – no need to write us a message about it, Mark! (Yeah, we’re on first name basis.)

Bored, I closed the letter and contined on to my daily Facebook routine (you know you have one, too):
Check notifications
Check boyfriend’s page
Check cute guy in class’s page
Check for new photo albums of friends…

And then I typed in my ex-boyfriend’s name. We’re not friends on Facebook anymore (so dramatic), but I just have to check if he’s changed his picture!  Don’t judge – you know you do it. Read More »

You finally made it over to the bed. His shirt is off, your underwear is soaring across the room. The lights are dim. The bed is quickly being destroyed. Lips are locked and you’re ready for sexy time. And then you hear the tap, tap, tap at the door.

Ah, interruptions during sex.

Everyone hates it, but in college, it seems unavoidable.  Maybe college students just don’t have the decorum to realize that if the door is shut, locked, and the person inside is yelling and pleading for you to go away, you should just walk away. Or perhaps since most college students are used to sharing everything from computer labs to showers, they think trying to walk in on their roommates sexy time is a-ok.

Seriously, whenever my boyfriend and I are trying to have some alone time, one of his three idiot roommates ruins the moment. It is usually like clockwork. If one of them isn’t sliding pennies under the door (yes, this happens. It’s strange, I know) to get my boyfriend’s attention, it is his annoyingly pompous roommate knocking to “inquire” about a bill. Oh, and my personal favorite is when they need to borrow my boyfriend’s stapler. It’s 1am on a Saturday, why the hell do you need a stapler?

If we wanted them to join, I’m sure we would leave the door open. But we don’t. And I don’t get it. If we just said goodnight twenty minutes ago, why are you sliding pennies under the door? What is it that makes people so oblivious to the need of alone time with a significant other? Maybe human beings secretly enjoy ruining the moment for someone; a little satisfaction knowing that a simple interruption can make a couple lose the desire for the moment. Or maybe that need for the stapler really is that imperative. Read More »

[I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the epitome of prim and proper- heck, who really is nowadays? But looking around at the misguided youths of today *ahem drinking buddies*, I’m starting to think that Miss Manners might have been onto something.

While you may never need to know how to greet a duke or how to tell which fork is REALLY the oyster fork, knowing how to deal with people whom owe you money, how much to tip, and how to address the ever annoying licorice-in-teeth conundrum without being rude might actually come in handy in the real world. I'm not trying to be your mother - oh goodness, no - I'm just here to help you out of those little etiquette dilemmas. So here goes: a quick lesson in etiquette. The sh*t you might actually need to know.]

Just for fun, I’ve decided to lighten up this week’s column with an article on urinal etiquette. I get such a laugh every time a guy friend walks out of a public restroom screaming, “He was staring at my penis!! EVERYONE KNOWS YOU DON’T LOOK AT ANOTHER GUY’S SHLONG!” Come to think of it, this seems to happen an awful lot. Hm.. what does this say about the company I keep? Perhaps I should work on being a little more suspicious of my friends..

Anyway, while I do that, here is some suggested reading for you guys (and interested gals). Since I lack the appendage in question, I had to enlist my dear friend and urinal expert, Justin G., to clue me in. Enjoy! ** Warning: This post is pretty crude. If you’d much rather learn about something a lot daintier, feel free to read up on how to be a good house guest or what to do when you meet his family. Read More »

I don’t know about you, but Facebook has gradually begun to take over my life over the past few years. It’s getting to the point where I think in third person, a la the Facebook status: “Kathryn is really stressed about her class schedule this spring.” “Kathryn is annoyed with bad drivers who slow her down.” “Kathryn really needs to get laid.” See? Now that last one would be inappropriate.

It’s hard, because I usually use FB to communicate with close friends who may have moved far away since our glory days as high school minors, and I often forget that I have a few hundred random people who really DON’T need to know my personal details. So, fellow collegiates, the next time you sit down and log in, take some of the following factors into consideration and reconfigure your FB behavior.

1. Poking is not a form of flirtation.

WTF? It’s a poke. It’s been around since the birth of Facebook, and it’s never made any sense. Maybe years ago, when FB was a baby, it was funny to have an online program that allowed you to “poke” people, but now, it’s played out. What comes from the poke? One of two things: The ignored poke, which will make you feel uber lame, or the “poke back.” And what comes from that?

2. “Gifts” are not actually gifts.

Whenever a free gift pops up, I think of a reason to send it to my cousin (who may or may not actually be my fraternal twin). However, spending $1 on a graphic is just lame. Especially when they sell out. HELLO! Virtual icons cannot sell out, because they don’t actually exist!!!! So, instead of spending a dollar to send your BFF a cartoon teddy bear, or your crush a virtual pair of panties as a sorry way to flirt, save your money and buy something that can be wrapped. Read More »

Though we’ve all heard that there are future employers, spouses, and murderers who are going to look us up on Facebook to stalk our past indiscretions, how many of us can truly say that our Facebooks are rated PG? While I remember myself painstakingly deleting every picture with the slightest reference of alcohol before I entered college, once I arrived at Michigan, it seemed that every person I knew was tagged in some sort of waterfall or beer pong picture. Slowly, I stopped being so anxious about what went up in my albums; a shot glass here, a beer bottle there, etc. Sure, I still de-tagged pictures of myself chugging bottles or double-fisting shots, but it never occurred to me that the mere mention of alcohol in an album would hurt my good name.

However, a couple of weeks ago I was presented with a problem when the advisor of my sorority came to me with pictures of me and my fellow sisters drinking in the house. While it is pretty easy to deny that you break the rules, it is hard to do so when you are presented with a picture of yourself mid-Smirnoff shot in your own room.

Though none of the pictures came from my own albums, I still found myself staring at my own face. These were pictures that were DE-TAGGED. Pictures that I had known were inappropriate, and had clicked the little button next to my name, the one that makes everything bad go away. I suppose when we all look at the pictures tagged of us and don’t see one, we forget that, despite not having our name, it still exists. Albums from August with pictures that I had forgotten existed were shown to me. While my first thought was, “Wow, this person needs a life if she is stalking pictures of me from 6 months ago,” my second one was “Well. This isn’t pretty.” Read More »

A 14-year-old New Jersey girl was arrested after posting nude pictures of herself on her Myspace profile in an attempt to tease her boyfriend. The charge? Distributing child pornography.

Three Pennsylvania teens face similar charges after sending some seriously dirty texts.

Yikes! I’ve been known to send what I suppose some could classify as a dirty text every now and then, and while it’s not illegal being I am an adult who can do whatever she pleases with her unlimited text plan, I can’t help but sympathize with these girls.

We all make stupid decisions when we’re in love…or lust. Read More »