by Carl Anctil
I was reading an article last week about social media and thought it would be a good idea to share it. The article is Social networking 101: Facebook and your digital reputation from The National Post.
In my opinion, in terms of reputation, there seems to be very little concern in the general population regarding the use of social networking sites. Most people simply go ahead and post a considerate amount of detail about their lives without worrying about the possible consequences.
Over a period of time – a few days, weeks, or even months – it’s difficult for anyone to gain an accurate picture of what’s happening in a person’s life. All this personal information is just given away, without hesitation, for anyone to see, judge, or otherwise interpret as they see fit.
Social media is an in the present technology. That means it is all about current events happening now. People’s posts often reflect their emotion or mood at that specific moment in time. Most of the time, posts include pictures or video clips that may have current event context associated with them. However (and this is the problem), context usually doesn’t continue over time. Remember the pictures of your ex that you posted? I bet it seemed like a good idea at the time, but now you wish you could take them back. How can anyone expect to have control of past information, especially when the context has passed?
This brings up the others factor. This factor is just as important because we usually don’t have any control over the information that others post about us. What they say and how they describe us at that specific moment in time will probably change over time. Once again, this is the problem with in the present technologies. Social media is a great tool for the present… but lacks the context of the past. What happens to posts when the context associated with that information disappears? This is when problems usually occur.
So watch your privacy settings and be responsible about what you post. Your reputation tomorrow may depend on what you post today.