On the flip side, many users are more concerned about quantity than quality. OMFG...I have 400 "friends"! They spend a great deal of time crafting their persona online so they look cool, hot, witty, tough, rich, whatever. Many people have lost their sense of appropriateness. Yes, it's your page so you can put whatever you want on it, BUT, if you open it up to the world, then you get what you get!
Today on the news a young man was crying because he was high fiving the recent riots in Vancouver and making "witty" remarks about how Vancouver needed a facelift anyway. On the same site he had information about his employer. Well, next thing you know the construction company where he worked starting getting many many emails about these remarks. So what did the company do? They fired his ass the next day! They didn't want the association and bad publicity this dumb dood brought.
On the news he was crying and saying that it was intended for his friends and they would have understood that he was joking and was not really like that. Well then if that was the intent, you failed horribly, because guess what....all those people going to your site are not your "friends"!
It all becomes permanent record so choose your audience wisely.
Social Media is definitely something people need to take serious in one form or another and you cannot avoid it. Social Media whether we like it or not is the next evolution of communication and the way the world works and does things. I'm not saying you need to jump on all the different things out there but the ones you do as you pointed out, you really need to be-careful of what you say because laws and employers are watching out for all kinds of things.
ReplyDeleteEven though I do realize that employers/potential employers are looking people up online, I continue to spew forth f-bombs, insults and blathering nonsense. Why? I have no idea. I'm either so obsessed with me that I can't get over myself long enough to realize that toning it down might be a smart play, or I'm really dumb. :) Or maybe I figure it's good that someone I'll be working for and with realizes that I really, REALLY like the f-word.
ReplyDeleteThen again, my current boss described my Twitter persona as 'polite', so maybe it's not me who's insane.
You are right Shaun it is here to stay. I think a lot of it is crazy because I have lived most of my life without social media and often see the negatives rather than the positives. Kids growing up today will never know what life is like without all of it. Everything everyone does will become a public event it seems and maybe that will be ok.
ReplyDeleteI think those who really choose to partake in it obviously find value in it so that's good. I don't mind opening up somewhat to friends, but never want that level of accessibility from strangers. Everyone has a different comfort level with that.
Gotta love the FB losers that don't have an internal filter... or a firm grip on reality. What you put out there people stays out there! I too have retards in my Friends List that are really too stupid for words, but hey I get a good laugh at their expense when things blow up in their faces later... don't hate on the FB hate on stupid people - Lisa
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