Social Networking and privacy

I would say that i actually use Facebook only a total of a max one hour everyday. most of this time is used for school related topics, and some for catching up with friends and seeing what's going on. for me and my schedule with school work and rowing, (and the fact that i live pretty far off campus) i almost need facebook to help me out when it comes to school; like finding out when/where to meet for projects and such. i would be a liar to say i dont check status updates, but i dont check them on facebook all that regularly. this brings me to something else, phones. with the dawning of smartphone one can do almost anything from it. for example, my phone came with a app that pulls everyone from your fb profile and adds them to my phone contacts. it also came with a widget that automatically pulls the most recent status update from fb, and i can further access the past 200 or so updates if i so care to. just this leads me to realize how un-private the world of social networking can be. it is amazing how a status that i post can instantly be shared with hundreds of people, when i wasnt even intending for it to be. there is a small positive trend that comes out of this; being the networking of people. i dont believe that the current form as in fb is ideal, i believe that there is a system that is slowly coming forth leading to more private networking ie. a program atoumatically filters out people that an update doesnt pertain to. currently the model of social networking is like a panopticon with no guards. i say this because all of your info and pictures are very public despite what they believe; so in layman's terms, one is ALWAYS being watched, you just dont realize it. it is almost like the movie 'living in public' with the underground society, people dont care about what others think because there is no regard to privacy. it is all to possible to over share with fb and texting, sometimes you forget some people can see your posts, and then you put things up that they were not supposed to see. ive done this, but i will not share because it is too embarrassing. and with texting, it is way too easy to over share. like with me, i rely on hand and facial cues when i communicate with people, and when they cant see those (text) things can be taken the wrong way. I however have come to realize over the years that even with all the privacy settings one can enact, your info is still too public. this being said i have taken a conservative and more professional approach to social networking, although the possibility of a mistake is always there to be made.