Social networks are the wave of the future. For the past couple of years, they have been transforming peoples' lives by bringing long lost family and friends back in touch. The major social networking sites have essentially become like online class reunions. For all of their good points, the issue of safety on these sites has also increasingly become a topic of interest. There are some safety tips that all who use the social networking sites should adhere to, and they are discussed in detail below.

First, users should ignore suspicious private messages sent by their friends. The emails are most likely the result of the friends' accounts being hijacked and contaminated by viruses. Opening the links in the emails will cause other people to catch the viruses as well. The friends whose names appear in the subject lines should be notified that their accounts had been taken over by viruses.

Next, users should sign on with as few applications as possible. While these applications may appear to be a lot of fun to users, it is becoming more commonplace for them to contain viruses. They are not worth the trouble.

Private information such as social security numbers, birth dates, credit card information, and more should never be posted on the sites. This even includes posting such sensitive information in designated private areas, as a person could never be sure if someone else's computer will be taken over by viruses.

People should also be very careful about posting certain photos on the sites. There are some stipulations in place indicating that photos can be used for commercial content. Furthermore, privacy settings should be vigorously applied to pictures. This is especially relevant where pictures of children are concerned. A lot of bad individuals roam the web, and users should be sure that only people who they want to see their pictures actually view them. Users should furthermore go through their friend lists and clean them out on a consistent basis. They should avoid adding people who they do not know that well.

Last but not least, users of the sites should never publish any information containing street addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. Even in private messages. Once information is posted, it has its permanent place on the web even if it is deleted at a later date. The basic rule of thumb is for people to avoid giving out information that they would not provide to strangers.

In conclusion, for all of the good points about social network sites, there are also safety precautions that people should take when using them. These include ignoring suspicious messages from friends, not giving out any private information whatsoever, being careful about what photos are posted on the sites, applying privacy settings to photos, and not publishing addresses, etc.