Not June Cleaver has a post up about privacy, her children’s lives, and Facebook that reminded me that I had an article sitting around here that I had been meaning to blog about.
When I went and looked for it, I realized it’s been sitting here for a little while – it’s dated from September!
With one child in college and looking at a career in only a few years and another starting high school this year and looking at applying to colleges in only a few years, it’s important for them to realize that the “fun” they have now may have an impact on what they are doing down the road.
Namely, their online personna needs to be thinking about their future even now.
A new survey of 500 top colleges found that 10% of admissions officers acknowledged looking at social-networking sites to evaluate applicants. Of those colleges making use of the online information, 38% said that what they saw “negatively affected” their views of the applicant. Only a quarter of the schools checking the sites said their views were improved, according to the survey by education company Kaplan, a unit of Washington Post Co.
And before you say that that’s only for college admissions…read on.
The sites have inspired many a national conversation over privacy and exhibitionism. Some job applicants have already discovered the hard way that employers often examine the sites to weed out candidates.
And I know about the employers previewing candidates on the sites because I’ve heard those stories elsewhere.
So, it’s very important if you (or your child) have a Facebook or MySpace account to watch your privacy settings and make sure that you aren’t paving a road you don’t want to travel.
I remember hearing about that article! Great reminder to think about these issues.
For me, this is just common sense. I know if I were an employer, I’d look up applicants. And I have thought the same true for college recruiters. It is also one of the reasons I don’t use our real names on my blog: I don’t want Thomas penalized for anything stupid I do on my blog (but I realize the my space/facebook stuff is on a whole different level than how I blog.)
I have told my son many times that he will never know privacy like I knew privacy. You have to be so careful.
As you know, my whole family seems to be online. Moreso than privacy, we’ve alreayd had a talk about personal things that should never be online. Even in supposedly “private” areas. information seen by some can (and sometimes does) get shared around and eventually publicized.
Also, a note to be careful about Facebook’s TOS. All content you upload there becomes *their* property.
So if your child sends up a pic of them as tot in diapers, or as a co-ed puking in the toilet, FB could use it in an ad if they wanted.
nobody in our house is allowed to sign up for myspace OR facebook.
The other house rule is never put online anything you wouldn’t want to see in the newspaper.
makes you think twice.
A friend of mine who works at a small college in the mid-west recently told me that he monitors their students on Facebook to make sure that they don’t do anything stupid. I’m assuming it is partly to do with the college’s reputation. And wanting their students to be employable.
This is uncharted waters now, isn’t it? For the first time we can get a glimpse into people’s private/personal lives in ways we’ve never been able to do so before. We can get a feel for people before we even meet them, and form opinions about them based on a “first impression” of what they’ve posted on their social network site of choice.
This reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” in which he demonstrates that we can actually get a better feel for who someone is by looking around their room for a few minutes than going out to coffee with them for a almost a year.
…interesting stuff.
I’m rather happy to be rather public with who I am and such, but we must be careful.
Hmm… I feel a blog post coming on…
~Luke
Hmmm … this is interesting. And with my daughter approaching college and employment in 4 years, it makes me even more glad I switched to a more anonymous way of blogging.
My blog has helped me get at least one job. The boss said knowing that I could formulate thoughts and write in complete sentences was a good thing
Really, the danger of Facebook is overhyped by the media. Facebook is adding 600,000 new accounts every single day. 99% of the content on Facebook is harmless. And if you keep all your Facebook content limited to just friends the admissions counselor or recruiter should not see anything beyond the fact that you have a profile anyway. There are over 100 million profiles on Facebook, so that doesn’t exactly make you unique. If I was hiring a new grad that claimed not to have a social networking presence I would immediately assume they are either lying or very antisocial. Neither is a desirable trait in an employee.
Chris,
As with anything, moderation is important, and in this case, Common Sense.
As Andrea said, I always use the assumption that anything I write (email or post) may get “out”
But then we have the kids who have posted videos of themselves doing illegal stuff and wonder why they get caught.
The only catch with the friends of friends setting in Facebook is that you don’t know who your friends’ friends are and what that may open yourself to. I have seen my kids’ friends say okay to friending just about anyone who asks – there seems to be a “competition” about trying to have the most friends possible.
Now it could be a college administrator person (before Boy left a few of the people from Trinity who contacted him asked to be friended) or it could be a scumball.
As for jobs, bashing employers in public is never good (see my comment about assuming your words get out.) but aside from that, there’s no reason not to assume that there are good reasons to have a presence.