Warning about Social Media

I was explaining the other day to my mom about what Twitter was and that I started a blog. She looked at me like I just said a barrage of foul, dirty words. Her immediate concerns ranged from privacy issues to legal implications of what I could possibily write and how it could come back to bite me. I quickly dismissed most of the concerns but than later that night it hit me, "what could be the down falls of social media?"

It was late and I was not sleeping (as usual) so I went on Google and searched my name. I know that a lot of people tease saying that is narcissistic but it was really was an eye opener. You do not know what is on the web until you search. I scrolled through about five pages and found most shockingly a website that was devoted to statistically complying my information on Twitter. (Website hint: buzz) It gave a pie chart of all the people that I talked to most, how many tweets that I did that month and the hash tags (#) I most often used in my tweets. I found out that big brother was watching and he indeed wants to know everything I tweet.

My grandfather always had a saying, "never write anything you don't want the whole world to see". We all know the more experienced we get on Twitter, everything we tweet is there for the whole world to see. (i.e. mean tweets) I have made it a priority to say only things that I mean. People have false comfort in thinking they can take back a tweet by a delete because as we have seen with famous celebrities in the news, there is always someone watching and ready to jump on you.

Another powerful tool on Twitter is the hash tag. They are great for people who want to search out others with common interests. I did though have one celebrity find one of my tweets and replied even though I never used their handle and hence they would of had to go out of their way to find. I was suprised they had the time to find it, but if I publicly say it, they have the right to find it.

I devote my blog to my Twitter interactions but I have to say someting about Facebook. If you publicly like any celebrity or public figure page by clicking the like button, anything you say or do on that page from there on in is for the world wide web to see. I have never been ashamed of anything I've publicly liked. (I am really too old to be shy about much of anything) But be aware of what you do, knowlege being power, since there has been too many news stories about people who do or say something that later gets them fired because their employer found it, not hired because a future employer found it, or you don't get into the college of your dreams because an admission officer finds it.

My only real advice is "Tweeters beware" and Google yourself once in a while. ;-)