Andrew J Clay
Social Media is a young person’s game, spewing personal opinions for the world to critique, expressing oneself through spring break photos and meme generating but does all of this freedom come a price later in life?
I must confess to being a “troll” on Facebook, looking for statuses that are posted by the ignorant activist and my personal favorite, the overly emotional confessions.
Lately it has been harder and harder to tolerate my newsfeed on Facebook and Twitter, because while “trolling” is fun, there are times when it loses its luster.
It comes from all sides of every issue and not just from the extremists, and at the end of the day the ignorance, hateful speech and memes were on your nerves and it becomes a burden to check Facebook and Twitter notifications.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condemning the use of personal opinions on social media, and I’m not perfect, but there seems to be a complete lack of self-control these days. I can’t help but remember the advice of my interviewing and information professor Carrie Reif.
She advises students seeking jobs within the professional world… a.k.a. ALL OF US, that social media should be kept as clean as possible when posting anything.
Even though some students protested the idea, because they are young and just having fun and companies will understand.
The answer is an emphatic no and do not let the illusion of privacy settings fool you, because if it is on the Internet someone can find it.
In my final few semesters, the idea of professionalism and corporate structure, and their importance has started sinking in.
It could be because of my name being associated with an entire paper or carrying around the reputation of a section on my back but whoever or whatever stirred the idea in my mind, is owed a sincere thank you.
For the most part, my opinions on controversial issues are kept to personal conversations or emails and left off of the Internet. As a natural “troll,” this is not always the case but as I continue to maintain a professional stance in social media I would urge all to get into the habit early.
There is a plethora or stories regarding disciplinary measures being taken after inappropriate posts have made their way in front of “the man’s” ever-present eye.
Our beloved Troy University has even taken action against a student for chronic anti-Trojan posts. This could be a rumor that never happened, but if there is any truth to this rumor it should make everyone weary.
At the end of the day, there is a certain amount of accountability that goes along with posts on social media and there could be a cost.
Join me in attempting to lessen the cost to my personal and professional image by not over sharing concerning any facet of life on Facebook.
