For many KU students, it’s a harmless distraction – a way of checking up on pals, keeping tabs on exes and whiling away the hours between – or during - lectures.  Indeed, the popularity of Facebook saw it overtake Google as the world’s most visited website, with over 400 million regular users. 

KU students admitted to a fondness for the site.  19 year-old Sustainable Development student Lan Anhnguyen said:

"Most of my family and friends live in a completely different timezone, so it's a good way of keeping up with them - cheaper than the phone, and easier than chatrooms.  I'm only friends with people I know on it, so I've never had any problems."

Journalism undergrad Tony Mogan, 20, felt similarly.

"I probably check it about five times a day - it's really easy when you have it on your phone.  I do enjoy keeping up with friends and seeing what everyone's been up to, although the occasional stranger has tried to add me in the past."

Faruk Diyenli, 19, agreed:  "I like Facebook - it's a good way of keeping in touch with people.  The only problem I've ever had with it is nightclubs adding me as friends and filling my wall and inbox with spam - other than that, it's been fine." 

But while the soothing blue of Facebook’s homepage may hint at harmless interaction between friends, the harsh reality of social networking has become increasingly prevalent. In that spirit, here’s a look at the dark underbelly of FB – a sorry tale of illicit sex, ruined careers, gratuitous violence and grisly murders. 

SACKINGS

A seemingly harmless status update can have a huge impact on your career, as 13 members of Virgin Atlantic cabin crew found last year.  Having branded passengers “chavs,” the offending posters went onto claim the firm’s jets were infested with cockroaches and had their engines replaced four times a year.  Having been alerted to the comments, bosses swiftly sacked the cabin crew, claiming they had “No right to insult the very passengers who pay their salaries.”

 Essex teen Kimberley Swann got the boot from her clerical job at Ivell Marketing and Logistics after claiming: “all I do is shred holepunch n scan paper!!! omg! so totally bord!”  Her remarks left bosses at the company unimpressed, and she was swiftly dismissed.

Despite that, the award for most toe-curling Facebook sacking story goes to a woman known only as Lindsay.  Having started the ball rolling one evening with “OMG I HATE MY JOB!!”  Lindsay went on to brand her boss “a total pervvy w*nker, always making me do shit stuff just to piss me off!! W*nker!"  

Sadly, Lindsay had forgotten that the boss in question was already one of her friends, having added him the previous week.  His response was as swift as it was merciless.  He said:

"Hi Lindsay, I guess you forgot about adding me on here?  Firstly, don't flatter yourself. Secondly, you've worked here 5 months and didn't work out that I'm gay? Thirdly, that 'shit stuff' is called your 'job', you know, what I pay you to do. But the fact that you seem to be able to f*ck up the simplest of tasks might contribute to how you feel about it.  And lastly, you also seem to have forgotten that you have 2 weeks left on your 6 month trial period. Don't bother coming in tomorrow.”  OMG!!   

SEX

For every tale of a lost job, there are countless others of relationships that have hit the skids as a result of sordid Facebook flirtation.  Having snatched the mantle of the love cheat’s preferred website from Friendsreunited,  Facebook is now cited in over 20 percent of divorce petitions, according to Mark Keenan, MD of DivorceOnline. 

Emma Brady, a 28 year-old conference organiser first heard she was getting divorced on reading “Neill Brady has ended his marriage to Emma” on the site’s newsfeed. 

Bespectacled journalist Georgina Hobbs-Meyer, 24, divorced her husband on finding a slew of racy emails on his computer:

“I began to use his Mac, only to find myself blasted into the middle of a sizzling cyber romance.  Their lusty emails touched on bad Beat poetry, but were infused with textspeak, their coy cyberflirts rife with emoticons. It felt like I was stuck in a hyper-reality where Douglas Coupland wrote Danielle Steel novels.”

Even more dramatic was the honeytrap sprung by 35 year-old Stephanie Davies on husband Simon.  Having become suspicious about her husband’s increased workload and addiction to the internet at home, Stephanie created an online alter-ego, 21 year-old Laura, to flirt with Simon. 

Ms Davies worked hard on making “Laura” seem authentic by using text-speak and making the odd spelling mistake.  However, her deception ended up working too well.  She explains:  "As well as flirting with Laura, Simon told me that he had a girlfriend, who was coming over from her home in Australia to join him. I felt sick."

Having planned a dramatic showdown which would see her arriving in place of Laura on a date she'd set up, Stephanie was too upset by the depth of her husband's deception, instead confronting him at home and demanding a divorce. 

DEATH

Whilst advances in technology have made life easier for millions, Facebook’s immediacy and intimacy have led to some real horror stories.  Australian twins Angela and Maryanne Vourlis woke up on their 20^th birthday and logged onto the site to check for birthday greetings, only discovered numerous "RIP, Gone Too Soon."-style postings on their 17 year-old brother Bobby's wall.  Police hadn’t been able to notify the family of his death in a car crash before news of the fatal accident hit the net. 

Simiarly,  it’s rare for a month to pass without the headline “Facebook Killer Murdered My Daughter/Sister/Other Loved One” screaming out from a newspaper page. 

March 2010 has been a notable month for Facebook fiends.   Double rapist Peter Chapman was convicted of murdering 17 year-old Ashleigh Hall after posing as “DJ Pete”, a good-looking teenage labourer from Stockton-on-Tees.  Having lured Ashleigh into his car by posing as her beau’s dad, Chapman raped and strangled the teen, before dumping her body in a rural beauty spot.  Paul Bristol, a 25 year-old IT technician from the Caribbean was jailed for butchering his ex, Camille Mathurasingh, after seeing her posing on Facebook with a new partner.  The sharp upturn in the amount of social networking related violence has led to the creation of the European Online Grooming Project, headed up by KU Criminology Professor Julia Davidson. 

There's no doubt social networking is here to stay.  For most people, it's little more than harmless fun, with the recent slew of lurid Facebook horror stories  probably serving to educate people on how to communicate safely.  However, the potential pitfalls are too great to ignore.  A simple but effective piece of advice comes from US President Barak Obama, who last year said:

"I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age, whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life.  When you’re young, you make mistakes and you do some stupid stuff.  Just be cautious and careful!"