The Commerce Times

“Don’t tag me, my boss might see.”

It started with MySpace. Then, Facebook came along. Now it’s Twitter. Social media technologies have become a major facet of our lives within the past few years. Generation X and neighboring generations have adopted it as a major form of communication and now consider it essential to having a social life.

As of yet, many students remain oblivious to the complications that can arise from having all your personal events public knowledge, especially when photo evidence is available. Students entering the workplace will soon discover their personal lives have suddenly become not-so-personal and professionalism in the workplace becomes a struggle.

It’s something we’ve all heard before; be careful what you put on the internet. Many people listen to this advice but fail to consider the whole picture. As students, it’s easy to disregard the warning because few of us have careers that may be compromised if a drunken photo of them falls into the wrong hands. James Norrie, Associate Dean and professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management, says that doesn’t mean it couldn’t affect you in the future.

“(Students) should be aware that anything they put on Facebook is… there pretty much for the rest of your life. You can take (pictures) down but there’s no guarantee that they aren’t sitting on a computer somewhere,” Norrie explains.

While not every employer is looking on the web before they hire you, having inappropriate photos on the web of yourself can seriously damage your reputation at work. While Facebook and Twitter are social forums, they do find their way into the workplace.

Infoscape Research member, Zach Devereaux, warns against this.

“Platforms like Facebook have become a major, if not predominant, way to share online content with personal and professional networks so social media technologies are already playing a significant role in some workplaces,” Devereaux advises.

These technologies came into our lives so quickly and spread so rapidly that we have yet to figure out all the consequences involved in using it. Privacy controls are in place for users but not everyone knows about them.

“In a recent survey I’m aware of… 80% of users don‘t even know about privacy settings,” Norrie informed us.

It’s time to start thinking of the future and arming ourselves with knowledge on these social networks we love so dearly. Remember, think before you post.