Social networking ...

Social networking was something I scoffed at after leaving school and refused to get actively involved with.

I created a myspace profile in the beginning purely so I could search for bands myspace pages and check out photos of my friends in 2002, a year before finishing school. I actually created my page in that I added photos and an "About Me" etc in 2005 when a forum I often read had a thread to link to your myspace, and I felt I should get amongst it.
I started using Facebook due to all of my friends switching to it from myspace, and that was only in December of last year that I made the switch. Submitting to peer pressure I guess was the main cause for me deciding to move my life online.

My personal privacy isn't a huge issue for me,if my photos are tagged and they're a little embarrassing or incriminating I'm likely to untag myself on Facebook/Myspace, and I'll usually only upload pretty tame photos of myself and others. Privacy isn't really a concern to me but I know that it's an issue for others so I try to be as respectful as I can to them. I personally don't really mind what info of mine is used by google or whoever, being that if I've decided to share this information on the internet I'm pretty comfortable with it being seen by whoever wants to take the time to find it.

As for meeting people from the net, I play a lot of online games so there have been hundreds of people I've known over the years throughout Australia and the world . I've met a lot of them over the last couple of years and have lived with someone who I'd known for 3 years on the internet but never met in real life when he needed a place to live in Brisbane and we had a spare room. A lot of people I know I've met through other friends, but have also had interaction with on the internet before meeting them . I've never been in a particularly awkward situation with any of these people as a result of only knowing them through various online networks but especially with gamers there can be a social barrier due to the fact that a lot of them don't spend a great deal of time interacting with other people.