Facebook has overtaken Google’s ‘Orkut’ as Brazil’s top social networking website.

In December 2011, Facebook attracted 36.1 million visitors, beating their long term rival Orkut. The number of Facebook visitors has sky-rocketed since 2010, when there were just 12.4 million visitors.

Brazil is the fifth biggest user of social networks globally according to a recent study by the analytics firm, Comscore. They also discovered that people between the ages of 24-34 are the largest group of users, but those between 15-24 spend the most time on the website.

Carmela Aquino of ComScore said: “I think part of it is the network effect - when you have a big enough mass of people beginning to jump on a social network, it’s only a matter of time that their friends get on the same network, and it starts to spread.”

A 17-year old trying to rob a shop was caught for being distracted by his facebook page. The teenager broke his way into a sporting goods store on Calle 7 and 58 yesterday, in the city of La Plata.

He tried on shirts and stuffed objects in his pocket, before spotting a computer. He proceeded to browse the internet and check his facebook account, giving time for the officers from the comisaría nueve, the local police station who had been alerted, to find and arrest him.

The case is being handled by the Juvenile Criminal justice. The boy is now being accused of attempted theft.

The old adage goes: hath thy facebook, and hath thy a job, delete your account. It’s true. Ask your friends, ask your teachers, (don’t) ask your boss. It’s ancient folklore.

Rachael and her Spanish teacher, Lesvia, in Guatemala (photo/Rachael Getzels)

Strictly speaking I don’t have a job. However, I like to imagine that I’m forging a path. It’s very windy, and I still don’t have diamonds on the soles of my shoes. But for me, the journey started in Guatemala, where I began work on my Spanish. It was also here that my proverbial knowledge of Facebook was addressed.

I had this realization when Lesvia, my favourite teacher - patient, clear, enthusiastic, time enough for an hour per sentence - added me on Facebook. At first I was proud. I received my first message in Spanish. I replied in Spanish. I was corrected in Spanish. But then came our last day together, and, too distraught to learn any more, we turned to Facebook. Lesvia scrolled through all 1,157 photos of mine as I sat next to her cowering with shame. Of course, I had considered how I looked in the eyes of my peers, but to my favorite Guatemalan maestra? For some reason, it had never crossed my mind.

As we skimmed through, the blinking, green hued computer cast my photos in an even more ugly light – Bebidas, mas bebidas. Mas. Every picture, she informed me, tipping her head back, and motioning towards her mouth with a pretend pint. And then, ‘Raquelllllll, what is this!? Raquel!’ There I was, pointing at the butt cheek of a boy who was gleefully mooning the photographer. And then again, a huge grin across my face. She kept going, her computer clicks drowning out my desperate explanations in broken Spanish.

We said goodbye that day, joking about my ‘sordid’ past, automated and ordered on Facebook. “Que tu extrañes sobre Inglaterra?” Lesvia asked. Extrañes. I filed through the Spanish words that I had stored in my head over the past weeks. Extrañes…? extraño! ‘Strange.’ “Los hombres quienes quiten su ropa!” I replied, affirmatively. My one last dash at dignity. Yes, that’s what I find strange about England! The men who take off their clothes all the time! “Es muy extraño, si?” Lesvia’s face lit up, “Ah Raquel. I see. So that’s what you miss?â€�