BuzzMashr

Watch what you post to Facebook because as this story proves, you never know who is using the personal information they find there to make decisions about you.

Nathalie Blanchard, 29, of Quebec, had been receiving monthly payment benefits from an insurance company through her job at IBM.

Blanchard was diagnosed with major depression a year-and-a-half ago and has not been actively working since.

But after her payments seemed to stop, she called her insurance company inquiring about why. She was told that due to photos of her posted on her Facebook account that showed her to be having a good time, she was no longer depressed, nor eligible for benefits.

A few photos were of her on vacation. But Blanchard said she told her insurance company about the trip.

“In the moment I’m happy, but before and after I have the same problems” as before, she said in a report from the CBC News.

Blanchard said that her doctor’s instructed her to try and have fun and get away in order to help improve her mood. Her lawyer Tom Lavin said he thought it was a poor idea to use Facebook to gauge someone’s mental health.

The insurance company said it does use Facebook and other social networking sites to investigate clients, but maintained that it was not the only method it uses to make decisions about a case.

It used to be that not getting invited to the coolest party was the deepest shun one could experience. But things have changed.

Now that a good chunk of modern socializing is done online, it’s the dreaded “unfriend” that people fear most. Such as, “I had to unfriend him after that date.”

It’s the equivalent of breaking up with someone in the Facebook or other social media worlds.

The official definition is: “To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site, such as Facebook.”

So dreaded, in fact, that the New Oxford American Dictionary has named “unfriend” the 2009 Word of the Year.

The announcement was made on the Oxford University blog, where they also list other words that almost made the cut.