Online Identity in a Networked World. How Is Social Media Affecting Our Lives?

Social media has renovated our lives  in the 21st century and how we communicate with others worldwide. There are positive and negative effects that social media has brought to our society. In the article that I found titled How Does Your Social Media Affect Your Next Job talks about the changes that social media has brought in our community. Moreover, it discusses how social media can be also used as a device in order to search a job that a person might be interested in getting into.

One example of a negative effect that social media has brought in our society is that a person can be easily be searched in the internet if you type his/her name example in google.  As an applicant in my opinion, I wouldn’t want my employer to go through my account to browse through my personal business because that is my privacy and it’s unethical in my opinion to judge someone based on what they saw on social media. According to both articles that were given to us in class Colleges Pay to Protect Students from Toxic Google Results and Employers scour Web for details on applicants basically stating that Job seekers must be aware of what they post in their social media because employers in the company will look through it and if ever they find any suspicious pictures of acts that an applicant has been doing, employers will not accept that applicant to be a part of their company if they have been caught doing immature things.  On the other hand, social media can be also  used as a positive device to anyone especially applicants who are seeking for a job. In the article that I searched How Does Your Social Media Affect Your Next Job, it posted different social media sites that people are accustomed to such as Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn site that people are not very accustomed to.  A social media called LinkedIn focuses on an individual’s personal life and career leading to job opportunities and job offers.  Similarly, to the article given to us, Colleges Pay to Protect students from Toxic Google results it talks about how social media can be useful in selling yourself to the employers and how to get  a job using a social media site.

The other article that I found interesting titled,  To Blog or Not To Blog talks about job search blogging and whether it’s appropriate for the employers to look through an applicant’s social media and judge them basing on what they saw.  This article mainly focuses on the things that a person can post in his/her blog and what not to post so that it will not be used by anyone in the future when you are applying a job.  In my opinion Alison Doyle who wrote the article To Blog or Not To Blog is making a point by asserting the things that should and the things that shouldn’t be posted in social media. It is very important in my opinion to think first before posting anything online because the posts that you put online might be something you’ll regret later on in your life. Writing a blog post in a hastily manner is not a good idea to put on social media because it affects how you look as an individual in the society that we live in.

Social media has advanced our society in several ways. But it also affected our lives the way we communicate with the society especially when we apply for any types of jobs. Social media is useful to everyone in our society because we can definitely communicate easier with one other with ease. I have nothing against  social media but we all should be careful on what we post online because it may be used against us in the future when we are applying to a job.

Links:

“World’s Largest Professional Network | LinkedIn.” World’s Largest Professional Network | LinkedIn. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.    LinkedIn  

“How Does Your Social Media Affect Your Next Job? -.” Infinity Consulting Solutions How Does Your Social Media Affect Your Next Job Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.  How Does Your Social Media Affect Your Next Job?

Doyle, Alison. “To Blog or Not to Blog?” About. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.                To Blog or Not to Blog?