I was terrified after I Googled my name…

Privacy, Legal Implications, Ethics….

Those are heavy words. However, I think as a person who is growing up in today’s society, it is so important to understand how to use social media the correct way. What I mean by that is, that you need to know how to your reputation safe and how to use social media legally. 

In class today, we looked at websites that could bring up our social media “reputation.” Because I have a really one-of-a-kind name, it was easy to find myself. Once I Googled my name, about a year ago, and I was absolutely freaked out at what the results were. Almost all of my Instagram pictures came up, my Facebook page, and even an old blog I did when I was in high school came up. I hated that if someone wanted to hurt me or just to learn about me, they could just see my life right there on their computer screen. Obviously after that I went and took every privacy precaution I could. I made my social media presence as private as I could. If I don’t know you, then I do not want you to be able to see my life on the internet. 

I am proud of my social media reputation though. I try my hardest to make sure that everything that gets posted is clean. Both my Grandma and my preacher from church have Facebook. I do no want something to get on there that would embarrass them. I take pride in having a clean page and I wish more people took it more serious. As we have discussed in class, future employers are more than likely going to look at our social media pages. 

Here is an article about whether college students are aware of their privacy on social media: http://usat.ly/19mA06s

They ask the question, “How much do college students care about online privacy?” The author, Katey Psencik, talks about how college students are not aware of when they give applications permission to their Facebook accounts that they have so much access to your profile. They talked to a couple of students, and they both said they make sure the application cannot post on their behalf, or that you at least can’t see it. However most people are unaware of what data these applications are collecting from your profile! They have access to your photos and friend lists. These applications are able to create ads just for you based off your information on your Facebook profile. 

To me, I stay as far away from that as I can. However, its easier said than done. These applications are always coming up on our social media outlets and we tend to just go ahead and accept them without actually thinking about the repercussions. 

 

I also think its really important to use social media legally. If you find an article (like I did earlier in this post) then make sure you put the link. It really is not that difficult to cite your site. 

Also, as discussed in class, cyberbullying is something that can never be addressed enough. People think that just because they are hiding behind a computer that they can say hurtful and hateful things. It isn’t okay. I was bullied as a middle schooler in class and no one ever did anything. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for that to happen and not even see their face. Cyberbullying happens too often and not enough people stand up for what is right. Hopefully one day we will see the end to the brave commenter on YouTube who has entirely too much to say and no idea what their words actually mean.