Is Social Media Safe?

I was talking with my daughter and her friend over Thanksgiving about social media and how they use it. I mentioned Snapchat and my daughter acted very surprised "dad, do you even know how to use it"?  "Of course" I replied. I've posted at least 3 or 4 times! They laughed and we started talking about all the cool things you can do with it. I like the idea of pictures and messages disappearing in a short period of time. It seemed like that provided a safer experience.

Then on Monday I read this article by Rachel Layne about the dangerous assumptions that people are making.  So I decided to share it with you here:

Beware the Lasting Impression of a "Temporary" Selfie

Think that probably inappropriate Snapchat selfie is safe from leaking into your professional life because it disappears? Think again.

Features on some communication apps like Snapchat and Instagram Stories allow you to share your images and messages with the comfort of knowing that they will disappear quickly from the public eye after having been seen by the intended recipients or after a short period of time.
Disappearing selfies are seemingly the ideal solution for people who enjoy life on social media but who are also keenly aware that 93 percent of job recruiters check social channels before hiring candidates.

“These temporary-sharing technologies…are supposed to solve this problem of the internet never forgetting,” says Leslie K. John, the Marvin Bower Associate Professor at Harvard Business School, who co-authored a new paper on social sharing. Yet they’re not the cure-all that we want them to be. "That’s because the impression that a temporarily shared selfie makes does not disappear when the [photo] disappears.”
In other words, some things once seen are difficult to unsee.
What’s more, the researchers discovered, through its impermanence, the technology encourages people to take more risks when they decide to post. So the impression from those posts can linger....

READ MORE