Ah, the love affair with Facebook! How many people in the world are social networking these days- millions. I came across a great article that opened my eyes and brought me a little comfort. The web means the end of forgetting. by Jeffery Rosen The article discusses the way social networking on the web is drastically changing our society. He told a story of an aspiring school teacher that was denied her teaching certificate when the board came across a "Drunken Pirate" photo on her MySpace. Mind you she was of legal age, off campus and not doing anything illegal. It seems that our private lives are no longer private, IF we choose to broadcast them on the web.
He spoke of reinventing your personal self. This is becoming harder and harder when you can't escape the mistakes of the past. Moving to a different city isn't even enough to start a new life. Your digital path follows you everywhere.
In the past we all went through "though teenage years" then we went through the "irresponsible college years" then eventually matured into an adult... most of us anyway. And this was an acceptable chain of events. People knew it was just a way to learn and grow. Now you can't make any mistakes and you for sure can't post about it on Facebook. It will come back to bite you in a couple years when you try and get a job and they look up your digital past. Yes ladies and gentlemen huge companies like Microsoft look into what you do online and take it into consideration before they will hire you. It is not against the law either. Forgiveness seems to be a thing of the past. A simple comment that is misunderstood online (and would have been resolved in a second during a live conversation) can cause grief for weeks. Those innocent childhood blunders stick to you like glue.
Another thing it brought up was how much can you really tell about a person by their online profiles. It said that extroverted people are pretty accurate and people that have a preconceived self image were off. They tried to portray themselves as being something they were not. I have noticed a lot of people only post "super awesome" things or "my life is so great" things. People, for your own sakes, give it up! No one has a perfect life, stop trying to pretend. Oh and it's super annoying too!
The comfort that this gives me is how much it ties in with my beliefs. Live like Christ is watching you, live like he's right there with you. If you do your best to be Christlike you probably won't have to worry about your "Drunken Pirate" pictures costing you a career. There are so many companies starting that are reputation savers, if you just try and make wise decisions you can save yourself a little money.
In light of this information and having gone through numerous incidents with friends on Facebook I've decided private messages are the way to go. I won't be responding to any group threads. I think it smarter to have a real conversation with a person's real voice. This is not to say I won't be on Facebook at all. I'm just going to be a lot more reserved and cautious.
4 comments:
Agreed. I always try to think twice before I post something on facebook. You never know how someone is going to take something & write, or if someone will be offended by something I do...so I try to be careful. Good reminder!
very nice - - I have to agree. This makes one think ALOT about what "posting" can do. There is much to love about it to. This does worry me though.
There can be many and more of the same cautions with texting too. I'll leave that to you Mary. Do another genius write up about how no one has to have any social abilities at all, all they have to do is text. NICE WORK
There was no sarcasm at all intended in my comment to this. I know many times there is but not this time
Totally agree. It's legal as long as companies do the same routine for EVERY candidate, and there are lots of companies I think starting to. You can't look up only the college students' profiles, or some other group of people who apply to your company. I've just decided I'm not touching Google or Facebook when it comes to hiring. I think I'd just rather not know the personal stuff, and go about it the old fashioned way - interviewing, interviewing, interviewing, criminal background check, employment verification. Done!
Since you mentioned it... When it comes to past mistakes, people are generally tougher on each other and on themselves than Christ would be. I think that's part of the reason I just don't want to know.
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