The concept of mystery is what attracts us to other people. We don’t tell someone on the first date that we still live with our moms, or that we hate our ex who cheated. Why do we do it on social media?
It astounds me how people feel that sharing the most intimate parts of their lives online is professionally appropriate.
Paragraphs about how a relationship went bad or how much they hate someone can be common on almost any news feed. As much as you think so, that picture of you doing that sweet keg stand is not as cool as you think it is. It almost makes it seem like our personas online are a digital soap opera.
Social media was originally meant to connect with friends and make new ones in the process, but so many people are using it for the wrong reasons.
The permanency of what we post online is real, which is why it is possible to look at the Facebook status you wrote in eighth grade and cringe.
If we can see what we wrote almost a decade ago, chances are high that it will still be there waiting for us 20 years from now.
It will also rear itself when a potential employer peruses your profile and has second thoughts about hiring you. It happens. Teachers do not just say to clean up your Facebook for no reason, and companies are not satisfied by just looking at your LinkedIn profile. They certainly know better.
Besides just losing out on a job, there is the other fact that nobody cares. Honestly, they don’t want to see your generic opinions about things like marijuana legalization.
Airing out dirty laundry online is showcasing your issues to hundreds, if not thousands of people. Broadcasting these things ruins the concept of getting to know someone. People can meet you for the first time and know more than your mother does. Having such a large audience should influence some of us to think twice. It affects public opinion of ourselves.
A good example is horror story that is Anthony Weiner’s political career. His sexual conquests online destroyed his chances of winning the election for mayor of New York. The students at Arizona State, who made racist jokes on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, were exposed on a national level and suspended. As a technological generation, it was our first priority to hide our profiles from our parents, migrating to different social media sites to post whatever we wanted out of their sight. Now, we have a much bigger issue. People lose jobs, lose relationships and can even go to jail for what they choose to post.
I’m not writing this as someone who knew better all along. I had my own issues with having profiles online that needed some spring cleaning. A lot of us did. It just comes with growing and gearing up toward life as someone with a career, which is an aspiration we all have at this University.
As college students, especially, we should regard ourselves as future professionals and people of character. It is disappointing to see such a disregard for our public image.
Column by Carly Besser, Opinion Editor