Have you ever asked yourself if your son or daughter spends too much time on Facebook? In a very interesting article for the New York Times, Katie Hafner explores the problem of Facebook obsession, and how many teens find it difficult to disconnect from the site, even though it’s a huge distraction from their other responsibilities.

From the article:

Facebook, the popular networking site, has 350 million members worldwide who, collectively, spend 10 billion minutes there every day, checking in with friends, writing on people’s electronic walls, clicking through photos and generally keeping pace with the drift of their social world.

Make that 9.9 billion and change. Recently, Halley Lamberson, 17, and Monica Reed, 16, juniors at San Francisco University High School, made a pact to help each other resist the lure of the login. Their status might as well now read, “I can’t be bothered.”

“We decided we spent way too much time obsessing over Facebook and it would be better if we took a break from it,” Halley said.

By mutual agreement, the two friends now allow themselves to log on to Facebook on the first Saturday of every month — and only on that day.

[...]

Facebook will not reveal how many users have deactivated service, but Kimberly Young, a psychologist who is the director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery in Bradford, Pa., said she had spoken with dozens of teenagers trying to break the Facebook habit.

“It’s like any other addiction,” Dr. Young said. “It’s hard to wean yourself.”

Dr. Young said she admired teenagers who came up with their own strategies for taking Facebook breaks in the absence of computer-addiction programs aimed at them.

“A lot of them are finding their own balance,” she said. “It’s like an eating disorder. You can’t eliminate food. You just have to make better choices about what you eat.” She added, “And what you do online.”

The article goes on to explore how Facebook may be getting in the way of important tasks like applying for college.

Many high school seniors, now in the thick of the college application process, are acutely aware of those hours spent clicking one link after another on the site.

Gaby Lee, 17, a senior at Head-Royce School in Oakland, Calif., had two weeks to complete her early decision application to Pomona College. Desperate, she deactivated her Facebook account.

The account still existed, but it looked to others as if it did not.

“No one could go on and write on my wall or look at my profile,” she said.

The habit did not die easily. Gaby said she would sit down at the computer and find that “my fingers would automatically go to Facebook.”

In her coming book, “Alone Together” (Basic Books, 2010), Sherry Turkle, a psychologist who is director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discusses teenagers who take breaks from Facebook.

For one 18-year-old boy completing a college application, Professor Turkle said, “Facebook wasn’t merely a distraction, but it was really confusing him about who he was,” and he opted to spend his senior year off the service. He was burned out, she said, trying to live up to his own descriptions of himself.

I’ll be the first to admit that I spend a lot of time online. Partly, it’s a function of my job. If I weren’t spending my day putting together comprehensive Facebook privacy guides or reporting on late-breaking privacy news, I might not have much use for the web. However, I also recognize that I like going online. I love how I can connect with friends and peers through social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. I love how I can easily and effectively promote my professional identity through my blog. Most of all, however, I love the access that the web gives me to a world’s worth of information.

That being said, I know when to call it quits. If I have somewhere to go or someone to meet, I don’t have a problem turning off the monitor and walking away from the computer. For some web surfers, it’s not that easy. If you believe your son or daughter is spending too much time online, talk to them about their web habits. If you think Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace is getting in the way of your child’s school work or inhibiting their social life, help them prioritize their responsibilities. Psychologists believe that teens will continue to mature emotionally and psychologically into their early twenties. If you don’t lay down some ground rules when they’re first beginning to use these technologies, you may find it difficult to help them later in life.

In a companion piece to Hafner’s article, Katherine Schulten prompts teens to ask themselves “Do I Spend Too Much Time on Facebook?” Check it out to see what some teens are saying about their internet habits.

In the old days, thieves would scout out neighborhoods to see when someone would be gone from their house. Now, all it takes is a quick Google search. If you’re traveling over the holidays, and you publicly share your travel plans on the Internet, you’re practically asking for someone to break-in to your home.

To help make sure you don’t have to spend New Years on the phone with your insurance agent, consider sharing your travel plans only with the people who need to know them. If you absolutely must tell the world you’re visiting old Aunt Melba, don’t say when you’ll be leaving and for how long you’ll be gone. Conversely, if you’re known for spending a lot of time online, don’t drop off the grid all together. Your disappearance from all forms of web communication could be just as big a clue that you’re house is unoccupied.

While it may seem like a silly precaution (“What criminal is going to take the time to follow little old me on Twitter?”), most crimes are crimes of opportunity. Don’t give a burglar the opportunity and incentive to enter your vacant home because of your Facebook addiction. Never underestimate the risk of oversharing online and use a more private form of communication to make your holiday plans.

Whether you’re a student, a CEO, or a stay-at-home mom, here at Reputation.com, we believe that everyone should take control of their online reputation. Still, there are some professions where being on top of your image online is especially important. Take politics, for example.

When you decide to run for public office, you knowingly cede some of your privacy with the goal of helping better serve your fellow citizen. With this decision, however, comes a responsibility to actively protect how you appear to the world. After all half of a politician’s job is to get his or her constituents to trust in them, isn’t it?

Since the emergence of blogs and social media, not to mention the 24-hour news channel, a politician must be on top of their reputation at all times to be an effective public leader. Besides the risk of negative press or defamation, politicians must worry about who they associate with, what businesses they patronize, and, perhaps most importantly, how their image is being used. No one can speak to that last point better than Democratic Illinois Congresswoman, Melissa Bean.

As reported by NBC Chicago, Bean recently found herself the subject of some scrutiny after her name was hijacked on numerous social media sites, including Facebook.

Scammers create fake Facebook accounts using Bean’s name, photo and pictures of her friends and family and send an invite to unsuspecting victims.

Once the victims friend the fake Bean, they receive emails asking them to donate money to bogus charities under the guise that Bean is endorsing them.

She’s not.

Obviously, for Bean, this represented a huge image problem. Not only were people on the web posing as her, but they were doing so in such a way that they were actually driving visitors away from her real social networking accounts. Luckily, Bean acted quickly, alerting both the police and Facebook to the fraud. In responding to the phishing scheme, Bean offered her supporters some words of advice on keeping their identities secure online.

“As someone who has spent a lot of time working on issues of Internet safety and identity theft, I know how widespread scams like this have become,” Bean said. “I encourage everyone to be careful and follow common-sense procedures, such as those suggested at OnGuardOnline, before giving out personal or financial information over e-mail, or to someone who has contacted you via e-mail.”

Good words of advice from someone who truly understands the importance of proactive online reputation management.

Last week, on Meet the Reputation.com Team, we profiled Bart Munro, Reputation.com’s Director of Product Management. Bart’s job is to help build smarter and more efficient products to help better serve our customers. One of the reasons why Reputation.com invests so much effort into making our products unique is because our customers have very unique needs.

Whether you want to promote your personal or professional brand, protect your identity from defamation or slander, or keep your children safe on the web,  Reputation.com has a product that can help. Of course, sometimes, our customers don’t know what services they need. That’s why we have people like Gurkiran Sandhu, who you’ll meet in today’s edition of Meet the Reputation.com Team.

Gurkiran specializes in helping our customers understand how our products work and helping them figure out the right combination of services for their unique needs. Learn more about Gurkiran and her work below.

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Gurkiran Sandhu and I analyze the goals of our clients and help them understand their needs as they relate to Online Reputation Management (ORM).

What did you do prior to joining Reputation.com?

I was a software engineer before I joined Reputation.com. I have over four years of experience in designing and developing software related to Failure Analysis in the Semiconductor industry.

What attracted you to Reputation.com?

The concept of online reputation management is very new, but a very important one for this day and age, when Internet is the primary source of getting information about anyone or anything. That’s why I wanted to be a part of Reputation.com – the leader in online reputation management – to help spread awareness of how to manage one’s online profile and maintain one’s good name on the web. I want to help people understand and learn how to manage a professional web presence and gain more control over their online persona.

Why do you think it’s important for people to manage their reputations online?

One Reason: People are Googling you. If you don’t like what they find, it’s up to you to change it.

When you’re not helping individuals control and protect their good names online, what do you like to do in your spare time?

I like to travel, try new restaurants, spend time with my family and friends and watch movies.

What’s your all-time favorite website?

What else? Reputation.com.

Last night, TechCrunch reported that Twitter was hacked by a group claiming to be the “Iranian Cyber Army.” As far as we know, no sensitive user information was compromised during the attack. The technical explanation of what happened to Twitter is that the site’s DNS records were compromised, which means that instead of accessing Twitter, people were redirected to a different site with pro-Iranian government messages.

At the New York Times Lede Blog, Robert Mackey pieces together the attack and explains how it is related to greater issues related to the recent Iranian elections.

According to one of Mr. Arrington’s sources, while the Google result for Twitter was showing the hacked message in English, it was accompanied by a sub-heading in Persian which said, roughly, “In the name of God, as an Iranian this is a reaction to Twitter’s sly interference which was U.S. authorities ordered in the internal affairs of my country.”

At the height of the post-election demonstrations against Iran’s government in the summer, the State Department asked Twitter to postpone a scheduled interruption of the service for maintenance, after opposition supporters expressed fear that the disruption would interfere with their protests.

In Iran on Friday, as Reuters reports, supporters of the government attended public rallies the opposition decided to boycott. According to the news agency, pro-government crowds chanted slogans against the leader of country’s opposition, Mir Hussein Moussavi, including, “Death to Moussavi” and “Moussavi should be executed.”

While Twitter is now functioning normally, and no sensitive information seems to have been compromised, we would advise you to change your Twitter password, just in case. Odds are good that your password is due for a change anyway, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t do it now. For tips on putting together a strong password, check out this advice from Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik.