Wild night?
The drinking party may have been wicked cool Saturday night. But the party pictures posted to a MySpace page the next morning may have the boss wondering if you will be into work Monday. And Nancy Williams said that may not be the best way to make a good impression.
Williams, assistant professor in the journalism department, said everything is traceable on the Internet. She said pictures and text posted on blogs, Facebook accounts and MySpace pages may end up haunting students for years, especially in terms of employment or professional presentation. And the problem has been around for a while.
In the mid-’90s, Williams said she ran into a Web site of a young woman she knew whose online content shocked her.
“I’m pretty hard to shock,” Williams said. “But it was published in public on the Internet, and I was just stunned.”
Since then, Williams said she has run into more MySpace pages that have shocked her. Williams, who works with young women in an adviser’s capacity, said she has even stumbled upon a couple of their pages that left her gasping. To help the situation, Williams said she talks to the young women she knows well enough to educate them about how their material can hurt them in the long run. Most of the time, Williams said she finds most of the young women have not thought about the consequences of what is posted.
“They just really haven’t thought about it, and often they just are thinking only their friends are seeing it or they are impressing their friends with it,” Williams said.
Students give their privacy away, sometimes inappropriately, when things are posted online, Williams said. Facebook, MySpace and blogs serve as personal Web pages for students to record or post happenings about their lives. These sites allow forgotten friends from high school to reconnect to old buddies. They also allow people to link to a global social network. Social links, such as these, allow personalities to shine through, Williams said, and can serve as a practical way of introducing oneself to the online world. Whatever is posted though leaves a footprint and can later be tracked by people like future employers.
“Now, its a piece of cake,” she said.
Williams said she has seen a lot of inappropriate things online, mostly in photos, even though most aren’t posted intentionally.
“If you’re applying for a job in a very conservative area, some think the idea is that (future employers) are not going to look at anything besides what they are given (like a resume),” she said. “But I think we are mistaken. (Students) don’t expect them to go fishing for their MySpace pages and Facebook pages, but they will. People will.”
Even if a student posted something on the Internet in a discussion 10 years ago as a completely different person, Williams said it will follow a student forever. To get something taken off a news group or discussion post, for example, is very difficult and takes a long time.
“There’s not a complaint department where you can go and say, ‘Hey, I was 15 and drinking and sneaking out of my window at night and now I’m 25 and mature and I’m sorry I wrote that, and when people Google my name, it comes up and I want it gone,'” Williams said.
Williams said she recommend students to Google their name to see what comes up. Future employers, she said, will do the same thing.
Some sites allow privacy settings that control how much information is hit in a Google search, she said. Facebook and MySpace can be protected somewhat, due to logins and privacy settings. On Facebook, a person can send a request to someone as a “friend request.” Once that request has been accepted, Williams said profiles can be swapped, so only requested friends can see some people’s profiles. However, Williams said this can be a double-edged sword.
“If you close down your privacy setting completely, you don’t get the social benefits from linking,” Williams said. “(But) on Facebook, I always tell students probably the same thing their mother would tell them, ‘Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know.’ It just seems stupid to me to do that.”
Privacy on the Internet is a controversial issue, she said. And a problem with these social sites is that most people give privacy away because they don’t think about it.
“It’s like that old saying that our grandmothers used to say, you know, it’s pretty hard to shut the barn doors after the horse has escaped,” Williams said.
Although a privacy issue, Williams said how much information students choose to post is really a matter of taste. However, students should remember how many people may have access to that post because people may say things they may later regret.
“If you’re going to say things you don’t want to follow you forever, then don’t put them on the public subway wall,” she said.
With the Internet, Williams said people now grow up in a more public way. Consequently, a lot of people are now writing posts that would normally be written in a personal diary and showing them to the world. Some deem this as inappropriate.
“I don’t think that’s going to stand when you look for a job,” she said.
However, the term “appropriate” is defined depending on the person, she said.
Using questionable language is one example.
Williams said The Kingston Trio, a folk and pop music group from the ’60s, came out with a song in the mid-’60s with the word “damn” in the chorus line of “I don’t give a damn about a greenback dollar.” All across the nation, Williams said ‘damn’ was blipped out of the song on radio airwaves.
“In 1965, you could not sing ‘damn’ in a song,” she said. “Look at where we are now. Look at what goes on over the radio waves all the time. So, on the one hand you have students saying, ‘Look, this is my private space and I can say what I want,’ and on the other hand, you have people who may be hiring you that grew up from the generation where ‘I don’t give a damn about a greenback dollar.’
“Those are the people who are hiring you.”
StacyAnn Allen, senior in journalism, said there is a difference between personal and professional information posted to a blog. Allen, who is working on a blog project for a public relations class, said blogs are a great way to do social networking and connect with people who are in a student’s field of interest. The best way to look professional is to do research about the future employer and then post accordingly because “anybody and their dog can see it.”
Allen said she heard of a blog where a girl posted model shots of herself in risque clothing because of her interest in modeling. However, the blog was meant to link with social networks concerning public domains or business opportunities. So, although the girl’s business portfolio and information was on the site for professional linking opportunities, she ended up not being hired by anybody, Allen said, possibly because she made the wrong impression.
“If it’s there, they’ll find it,” she said.
Allen said students should write something interesting on their blog and post pictures of them actively doing something they enjoy, like a sport or a hobby. She also said to update the site regularly but to be smart about the content.
“You can control comments on your blog,” Allen said.
So don’t let the next picture be of a beer keg. Maybe that will help you get your next job.
-brittny.jo@aggiemail.usu.edu