Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Your Life on Cyberspace
I started thinking about who I am online. When I first created an online profile I used a pseudonym. I've never taken my online interactions seriously and never felt I needed to identify myself with my real name. Who I am in my personal life, my public life, my professional life, and my life online are very different. I consider all of my spaces very private and I only share my life with people I trust whether its in real life or online. I think subconsciously I never used my real name on social media because I did not want to a professional organization to view what I consider very private information. I consider any professional entity searching for me online a big invasion of my privacy. My Myspace has been deleted for many years. My Facebook page is reserved for a small group of friends and relatives that I trust sharing information with. I only use twitter to follow various personalities on the internet. This is the only social media I use where I am more public. Strangers can follow me and I follow strangers back. Sometimes I've made online friends with people that I share similar interests. The only social media site where I publicly identify myself is LinkedIn. I can be found there and I only use it to network with other professionals and as an online resume.
In the articles we read I noticed the common theme was about how your online persona can impact whether you get a job. In the education field, teacher have to be even more careful about their digital tattoo. I know that when we apply for jobs some employers may search for you online but I think this is wrong. To me going through your Facebook page and looking at your pictures is the same breaking into your house and going through your photo albums. Its not right and I hope I encounter employers that have the moral code to not invade my privacy. Running a criminal background check is fair game because employers have to make sure they are not hiring criminals but searching your social media sites is just plain wrong.
Personally, I don't use social media often nor do I have any accounts under my name so I don't really have to do much to "clean up" my life on cyberspace. All my social media accounts are private. I do understand that its important to keep a clean image online and this is something I will emphasize in my class. Sometimes we think people should just know to behave well online and keep a clean image but often they need to be reminded. This assignment was a good reminder for us future teachers to clean up our life on cyberspace.
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I thought your response was very informative. Your comments on the compartmentalization of your life on various social media platforms shows a very good method of avoiding some of the potential unpleasantness the articles discussed. Many of us (myself included) have not differentiated our presences on different social media sites, and the overlap of professional and personal life can be a source of consternation.
ReplyDeleteI did see a counterargument (or perhaps simply an unfortunate observation) for your argument about employers' invasion of privacy. While photo albums are physically restricted to one location, placing photos or other media on Facebook is more like posting them on a bulletin board or on the wall of another building, as the photos are held in servers owned by Facebook. While I share your sense of violation at this practice, I don't know that I see any sign of it changing. Even in countries establishing legislation about the "right to be forgotten", as John Oliver pointed out earlier this year on his show, all we know about the man whose case sparked this debate is the one bit of info he didn't want anyone to know. Putting a photo online is ensuring that the image will both spread further and last longer than you expect it to, and while I share your opinion that this is unfortunate, I don't see any way to change that without eroding the free speech principles at the heart of much of our society's online culture.