Facebook Is Watching You

Now days almost everyone is on Facebook, some of us, or shall I say the majority of us treat Facebook as our own personal journals. We share every bit of information we would like to be known almost everyday. We share photos of the most embarrassing moments, captured moments of happiness and other feelings, but the only difference is, we not only share these to our private diaries or journals, we share these to the world.

Because of this situation, we should be careful about what we post, what we share on Facebook, because the information we share reflects what we are – who we are in the real world.

Yes, it is fun to share pictures while you’re partying, videos of funny moments, sharing a status update of something you made out of a crazy moment, but this is proof that you did something and now you are shouting it to the whole world.

You never know who will check your Facebook account, your professor, your future employer, your boss, girlfriends mother, or whosoever. Would the content you shared on Facebook be beneficial or helpful for you?

Jen Williams relates how sharing unwanted content can get back to you in her “Watch What You Say: Facebook Sees You!”

A social media professor at Stanford University, Howard Rheingold, sees the effects of bad decisions now amongst his former students. Some of them have been denied jobs or passed over for positions in their postgraduate field. This has been mostly due to their Facebook activity that potential employers have looked at, and decided that the person was not a good fit for their company.

Professor Rheingold knows that the questionable and inappropriate behavior exemplified by some of his students is still penalzing them, even five or more years later. But, he has also begun to notice that because of that social networking backlash, students are beginning to change their behavior, or at least watch more carefully what they put on their pages.

The world will tend to see only a stain on an otherwise clear glass.

As early as now, think back, review, assess what you are posting and publishing. It takes a long time to develop a personal brand, but a few silly photos to destroy it.