Agustina Prigoshin

Facebook’s Weight on Real Life

By Agustina Tuesday June 8, 2010

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This is more of a question to the masses. How do you react to decisions on Facebook?

As some of you know, I work with a youth group and I get a lot of insight from my kids regarding how much importance they give to their online lives. For example, have you ever heard of “FBO”? When some of the high schoolers start dating, they get asked if it’s FBO. FBO: “Facebook Official.” So if your relationship status isn’t changed from “single” to “in a relationship” on Facebook, it’s not 100% official that you’re dating.

It’s cute in a way, that we want to announce to the world of our new relationship, but what about when the relationship ends? Do you feel the breakup pain twice? Once when you actually break up and once again when you tell the world that it’s over? And who should be the first to change that status? Is the person who changes it a bad person for doing it? Talk about adding additional stress to an already stressful situation!

Another big question, and this one I’ve seen from my youth group kids to my adult friends and, I’ll admit it, myself: why take it so personally when someone removes you from their friends on Facebook?

I’ve had falling outs with people in real life that have resulted in unfriending on Facebook. Ever been unfriended? Did it sting a little bit? Why? In real life, we juggle so many relationships and deal with so many personalities that we’re bound to clash against some of them. And in real life, we admit our differences and move on without looking back, but when unfriending occurs on Facebook, it feels like someone kicked dirt in your face. Could it be for the same reason as the relationship status? It’s public?

All in all, I’m wondering why we base so much emotion off of Facebook decisions. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

FourSquare saves the night! And a phone call to the cops.

By Agustina Tuesday May 18, 2010

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About two weeks ago, I put my poor mother through hell.

What started as a regular day turned into a pretty adventure-packed one. I left in the morning to go about my usual business, stopped at Refresh Fort Lauderdale in the evening and then headed to the movies to catch the midnight screening of Iron Man 2. With all the tweeting, texting and checking in, my phone was down to one bar of battery so I turned it off in case I needed it for an emergency.

We got out of the movies around 2:30 a.m. to deal with a stressful situation: We locked the keys in the car and the lights were on. Luckily we had two cars. We took the available car and hit the road en route to pick up the spare key. Finally, with spare key in hand, we got to the car to find that the battery was dead. We then headed to my house to pick up my jumper cables and was greeted by my frantic mother. It was 4:30 a.m. and I forgot to text her to let her know I was alive and what’s worst, I had turned my phone off to conserve its battery. She had called me hundreds of times and even called to wake up my brother to see if he knew about my whereabouts. Knowing that I’m incredibly transparent in everything I do, she decided to check my Facebook page and voila!

She finally calmed down after seeing that I checked in to the movie theater at midnight to catch the movie.

This was a whole long story only to say that FourSquare saved her a call to the police, hospital, morgue and any other horrifying place a mother thinks of calling when their child isn’t responsive.

Then, I got to thinking: With so many news stories on how the police catch suspected crooks via Facebook and Twitter, FourSquare could be used as a great tool to start tracking people who have disappeared, for example.

Worst case scenario: I went missing that night. My mother or even investigators will know where I was at what time of the day (assuming my check ins are honest – which in my case, they are) and even know who was with me. People who checked in to that location with me can probably answer some questions that can help find me.

I’m very picky about who I allow to follow me on FourSquare because in reality, there are some crazy people out there and I don’t want them knowing my every move, but I rest a little better now knowing that my checking in could possibly save me if I were faced with my worst case scenario, which I hope I never have to test.

My mother also got a lesson on how FourSquare works just in case she ever needs to know where I am.

Becoming a U.S. Citizen

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For those of you who know me and are following me on Twitter and Facebook, know I’m in the midst of becoming a U.S. Citizen. Don’t know if this will get me in trouble to say, but I’ve been here for 24 years and it feels a little bit like a relief to finally be [...]

Benefits to Networking

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Lately, I’ve had a lot of people ask me for tips on how to get the most out of their networking. So last week, I wrote a post on the very basics on how to network.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how important networking is now that more people are looking for work. But more [...]

How to Network

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A few weeks ago, I was invited to a North Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce happy hour event. My friend Holly Jordano, who’s a board member, asked if I would give a quick presentation on how to network. Nervously, I said, “Sure.”
I grabbed the mic and quickly thought about my own networking process, what I [...]

Chevy Pizza Crawl

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Saturday was the Chevy Pizza Crawl and I was lucky enough to be selected as one of the… crawlers.
The event was, essentially, WorstPizza.com taking their famous Pizza TweetUps to the next level by teaming up with a local Chevy dealership. 20 people were selected to ride in five brand new Chevy’s to various pizza restaurants, [...]