Once a week or so, I get an invitation to “friend” someone on Facebook. My sisters are hooked, as are my friends Chris, Jim, Pam, Norine and Sean. But so far I’ve resisted the siren song of the virtual coffee shop—and suddenly, I’m rather glad.

On my way to work this morning, I heard a report about the increase in hacks aimed at social networking site users. One woman’s account was taken over by an impersonator who sent messages to her friends, asking them to send money.

Then, I came across an article about why users of some social networking sites could face higher home insurance premiums. Apparently they have a higher risk of being burgled because they post way too much information online. “People are boasting about how they are having a fantastic time on a beach in Mexico on a webpage that has their home address,” according to the article. Wow.

In some of these cases, a little common sense would go a long way. For the majority of users, it’s still probably pretty safe.

Still, I think I’ll continue to resist those pesky invitations. I’d much rather meet a friend for coffee, anyway, than repeatedly get “poked.”