Digital Tattoos
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| Meme created at imgflip.com |
Let me first clarify, I do not condone violence. But, as this meme should clearly show, physical blemishes can heal and disappear. Digital blemishes, well, not so much.
Whenever you put something online, it will always be there. Web sites are backed up and archived over and over and over again. Things on the internet simply do not just "go away" when we are done with them. They might be temporarily hidden, or not as easy to reach, but they can always be there. I used to run my own business providing baseball umpires to youth travel teams and park programs. I stopped because I could no longer ump myself due to problems with my knees. Even though I discontinued the web site for that business almost 10 years ago, there is still an archive of it at the Wayback Machine.
Even if you "cancel" an account, you can still log in with the same username and password and reactivate it, and there are all of your posts and images readily accessible. I used to have a MySpace page (remember when that was the latest thing, kids?), and if I log in to MySpace now my old account is still there just waiting for me to check the box that says "make active".
And what happens when someone re-posts, or likes, or forwards, or saves a copy of something you have posted? Have you posted things that you are embarrassed about? Be mindful of what is posted. It's okay to have a personal presence that is different from your professional presence, but be careful. Employers and HR departments have been known to search for info about potential AND current employees. I worked with a fellow teacher who was let go due to what was perceived as a "non-professional web presence" - she posted pics on MySpace from a friend's bachelorette party that she was at... and the district thought those pics went against their image of what a teacher should be. Were they right? Who's to say, but this should serve as a warning - be careful what you post, because just like in real life, you only have one chance to make the right impression of who you truly are.
Hi Scott,
ReplyDeleteGreat meme! I love your connection between physical blemishes and digital blemishes. Your blog post also had me thinking of all the old accounts my friends and I would make as teenagers. I think we even had something called a Xanga? Gosh, I'm not sure I'd want to see what middle school me thought was so important I needed to write about it all over the internet. Great post and I think you meme will get people thinking about the digital footprint we leave on the Internet forever.
Your comments remind me of what I said in my "generations" post last week. You are young enough to have had more access to "devices" at a younger age, therefore posting online was available much earlier in your life for you than it was for me. Are any of those posts potentially embarrassing now that you are more mature? Could they be possibly seen by professionals or potential employers? Could they possibly give the wrong impression now even though you were so young then? These are things younger people today need to be concerned about as they start to encounter "real" situations in the non-digital world.
DeleteBrilliant meme and great use of lead of "Holy...." Batman would be proud.
ReplyDeleteHandprint, footprint. PotAYto, potAHto. Mayor Adam West would be proud as well.
DeleteFantastic meme! Great post about the permanency of the Internet. People are always shocked when they learn about the Wayback Machine! For me, I feel it is important to show not only my professional side but also a bit of a personal side on the Internet. While the situation with your former co-worker was extreme I have to imagine that wouldn't happen today. At least I hope not....
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if it still couldn’t happen today. I know from friends I still have in the corporate world that HR departments have people who periodically look at the social media pages of employees seeing if posts will end up “reflecting badly on the company”. And I have heard of school districts looking for posts of possible new hires that might disqualify a candidate because their public image might not be the district’s image of what they think a teacher should be.
DeleteScott,
ReplyDeleteI love your meme! I sometimes wish someone would've slap some sense into me when I was posting all of my "oversharing" on Myspace and Facebook. I often look back and think what was I thinking. It was a different time when I was growing up because social media wasn't at the center of all of my social engagements with people. I think it is our duty as educators to help students growing up to be smart about what they put on the internet for the same reasons you mentioned above. Universities, jobs, and countless other facilities will find all of the silly things they post whether they like it or not. It is partly our responsibility to make sure their social media presence doesn't effect them long term.
I like the way you describe your postings in your youth as oversharing. I think people all too often overshare info about their lives, but then they are shocked when their identity is stolen. And sometimes the info used to steal their identity can be linked somehow to social media...
DeleteI laughed out loud when I saw that meme. So true! I feel like I'm having this conversation with my students all the time (only not about drunk pics). They share every aspect of their lives on social media, but then they can't understand why people are commenting on what they share or why people are "in their business". I don't know how much they understand that posting something is allowing people to form an opinion and how what they post will follow them throughout their lives. I think it would be helpful if more emphasis was put on these issues in school.
ReplyDeleteFor teaching digital citizenship, which also has material on social media for all grade levels, I use materials from commonsensemedia.org. This isn't so true at my current K-5 school, but at the middle school I was at for the past 8 years many of the physical altercations we had started as a simple post on social media. When opinions are formed or misinterpreted, all too often people jump to the wrong conclusion and then the in-person scuffles follow.
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