If you’re reading this, I assume you are on some kind of social networking site. If you’re not, continue, this won’t apply to you, but go for it.
As a teenager in this generation, I have a Facebook account, I have a Flickr account for my photography, and I have a pinterest account to plan my fake wedding to Joe Mauer. By this point, I have established an online identity, whether I like it or not.
Personally, I am more conservative than many of my peers with what I allow to be seen publicly, but sometimes it doesn’t matter.It’s still on the internet. That word, to a lot of us, means a vast space of information, pictures, and useless websites, but your stuff is still out there, for anyone to find. Ok, maybe that was a little creepy, it’s true not everyone can see everything, but there are some things you should know.
1. Not Everyone Can See Everything, but…
Recently there have been cases in the news of people going to job interviews only to be asked for their Facebook login information. While this is not something you should do, it is something you should be aware of. You may have your privacy settings to ‘friends only’ on Facebook, but what would you do if there was a glitch in the system and suddenly everything became public? If you would panic, then you should reconsider what you post, while it is semi-private, it is still in a public forum.
2. Speaking of public forum…
Do you know every single person on your friends list? How well do you know them? If you wouldn’t want an acquaintance or mutual friend to see something you probably shouldn’t post it. I think it’s safe to say that anybody with over 20 friends on Facebook couldn’t name all of them. So if you don’t know who’s seeing it, be careful it’s not something you would regret them seeing.
3. Speaking of regret…
Whatever you do, DO NOT post pictures of you drinking, doing drugs, or even legal things you wouldn’t want an aquintance to see, on social media sites. I know it sounds obvious, but we want to share things in our life with the people we’re connected with on these sites, and if drinking is part of your life, you do not want to share it.
4.Speaking of sharing…
You know that share button on Facebook? Yeah, everyone can share everything. You can write a status, your friend could share it, and then all of their friends could see it. Hopefully it was something nice.
5. Speaking of nice…
I know I’m starting to sound like your grandma here, but if you want to write something bad about someone on Facebook, I can’t stop you. Whatever you do though, don’t tag them. This could become an issue outside of Facebook and in real life if you say something that is illegal or could get someone in trouble otherwise.
6. Speaking of your grandma…
If you wouldn’t want your grandma to see it, don’t post it.
7. Speaking of posting…
If you wrote that status or tweet about your friend that I told you not to and now you’re regretting it (like I said you would) so you delete it, know that Twitter and Facebook’s database still has it, and other people still saw it…
8. Speaking of Other People…
So if you’re still on these sites after all the things I just told you (who am I kidding, of course you are) then you should know that sometimes people get together in real life and not in chat rooms. You know what people do in real life, they online stalk together. So even if you’re not friends with someone, your other friend could be, and they could be showing people all the stuff you post even if it’s only shared with your “friends.”
9. Speaking of your friends…
Do you know who your Facebook friends are? I mean, do you really know. Not just their names and relationship statuses, but have you ever had a conversation with them? If you’ve never had a conversations with them, and if you couldn’t tell anyone anything about them that you didn’t learn on Facebook, maybe you don’t really want them to see your personal information.
10. Speaking of personal information…
This is going to sound obvious, but the more you put on social networking sites, the easier it is for you to be hacked. Hackers don’t need much anymore, but it’s not always them you need to be worried about. It’s your colleagues, your family, and your friends. The more personal information you post, the more your boss or your colleagues know about you, and the higher your chances of being fired (fairly or not, but that’s another issue). Even if you’re not friends with your boss or your parents, they have ways of finding out, sometimes they don’t end well.
