But wait, I forgot to mention that my friends and I are a generation apart – and it shows. Whilst most of my social ecosystem grew under zero influence of the internet and is therefore agnostic to online social codes, to my friends there is no such clear line. Their online and offline personas are bundled together, and increasingly their cultural codes, references, brand preferences (and prejudices) are generated online.

Fair enough, my girlie lunch friends and I all work in the internet industry and thus are fickle early adopters. But from the research we do I get the impression that this is getting more widespread. What do you think?

It might be an age thing – I try being selective with the people I  allow into my network, but according to British insurance and investment management firm Legal & General, 13% of Facebook users and 92% of Twitter users tend to accept followers requests without checking them up.  And according to web security firm Sophos research shows that 41% per cent of people display personal and private information to complete strangers on Facebook, such as their date of birth, where they worked, where they lived and what they were doing. The result is that naive social network users may face higher insurance prices and limited coverage in case of burglary.

And speaking of naivety and robbery, I just love this story of the burglar who had to check his Facebook profile still at the crime scene, forgot to logout and got caught. Couldn’t help it the sad geek.