We have all heard it before: ‘Watch what you say on the Internet; it could be dangerous.’ But how can Facebook possibly be dangerous? You can post pictures, keep in touch with old and new friends, and look at how much fun everybody else is having. There’s nothing wrong with that, right? Wrong.

The release of the new movie ‘Catfish’ will hopefully create awareness about the dangers people are unknowingly entering through Facebook. In the film, a man believes he is in a relationship with a young, beautiful girl, but things get twisted when he decides to spontaneously show up at her house. Have you ever created a mental image of someone you have met only through Facebook?

The perfect example is roommate searching. Many students find their first-year roommate over Facebook and realize that the person is not at all how they expected them to be. After all, how much can pictures and a little blurb tell us about a person? Anyone can just make up a name and pretend to be someone completely different.

And since when did it become socially acceptable to refer to yourself as a ‘creep’ or a ‘stalker’? Why should anyone else care where you have been, what you have worn or who you have talked to within the past six months? Not only does this waste time you could be spending living your own life, but it can be emotionally draining, self-esteem crippling and, yes, I will say it again, dangerous.

Let us state the obvious here: You can post your full name, hometown, current city and birthday. Status updates can reveal every single place in that town you go to and at what time. So even if your profile is private, anyone in your network of friends can know who you are, how old you are and where you will be.

They can see what your job is, what time you work, where you go to school and who you will be hanging out with. This is almost setting yourself up to be stalked or kidnapped, especially when your profile picture involves wearing a provocative bikini at the beach.

The widely-used term ‘Facebook stalking’ blurs the line between playful curiosity and threatening obsession.

Then there are the issues of job hunting or applying to schools.

Of the 7.5 million college students using Facebook, many of them will soon come to find that pictures posted from one night of partying may ruin their chances of getting the job of their dreams.

Tim DeMello, owner of the Internet company Ziggs, estimated in an interview with CBS News that ‘about 20 percent of companies are secretly scanning online profiles before they interview applicants.’

Sasha Belliveau, an undeclared freshman at Binghamton University, claims to have realized this prospective danger fairly quickly.

‘I heard rumors that admissions offices were searching Facebook profiles,’ Belliveau said. ‘I wasn’t going to risk all my hard work, so I went right home and deleted anything I believed would be the slightest bit sketchy.’

According to an article by Fast Company, researchers from Carnegie Mellon have determined an algorithm to guess your social security number from the simple information that is shown on Facebook, such as your date and place of birth.

Most people prefer to remain ignorant of the potential dangers of Facebook, but that is their prerogative. Just as a hammer can be used to build a house, it could be wielded like a weapon. Facebook is a tool, not a toy.