The Step Forward….
Based on how young people use the Internet these days and what they deem fit for universal public consumption and disclosure, I have believed that for a very long time that they do not fully understand the implications of privacy and what it might mean to their personal and professional lives in the near and long term. Like impetuous youth, many do not think beyond the 30 minutes their attention spans can handle most days.
However, a recent story I read in the New York Times gave me some renewal of faith in the ‘yutes’ of the world as they begin to realize that self-censorship might be one of the most beneficial actions they can undertake in the protection and advancement of their current and future professional lives.
What many of these young people are quickly realizing is that not only are future and prospective employers trolling social media sites like Facebook, MySpace and search engines like Google for evidence of the candidate’s character, or other activity that may be representative of action ‘unbecoming of an officer’, but college admission offices are doing the same as well.
As an employee, you publicly represent the company; as a student, you are also a public representative of a college too. And as any business, (with the possible exception of the Hell’s Angels, I would imagine), public relations is a key element in the continued success of the college as it aims to turnout fine, exemplary products who represent the best of what the institution has to offer. So in addition to removing from their social media profiles any incriminating or questionable pictures, links, group associations and even political affiliations, some very canny students are starting to change the names of their Facebook profiles as early as Junior year so as to throw off the scent of the college admission snoop who is trying to determine if little Suzy is a collegiate candidate worth of the Ivy League institution’s hallowed sheepskin.
The Two Steps Back part…
Obscuring the details of one’s online avatar seems like a lot of work and possibly hardly worth the effort considering the risk to your privacy that someone might actually find you online. If you think that you will fall way under the radar of such important and busy people to waste their time in trying to find out if you have any drunken Mardi Gras pictures on your Facebook page or not, consider this website: www.peopleofWalMart.com. This website features pictures of actual customers of Wal-Mart taken by other customers and then uploaded to this site – without their permission or knowledge. The site claims itself to be a “satirical social commentary of the extraordinary sights found at America’s favorite store”.
Forget worrying about if your online privacy is being encroached upon or used as a factor in deciding your future, what this site tells me is that you cannot even take a quick trip to Wal-Mart in your scurvy, old pajamas to pick up a box of Q-Tips or Shake ‘n Bake without escaping the Black Hole of the ‘public domain’.
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