Social Media; Who’s Looking?
How to Maintain Appropriate Social Media Profiles
With an ever-increasing percent of the population using social media websites, it is more important than ever to understand how to keep them appropriate. After all, your grandma, your boss, and your teacher all likely have a Facebook, if not a Twitter or even an Instagram. So, how do you know what’s appropriate to post? Who do you give access to your profile? Follow these tips to ensure that you never find yourself in an embarrassing situation over something you posted online.
1. Keep your profile private.
For most popular social media sites, there are privacy settings to ensure that the general public cannot dig through your past. Never keep your profile public, for safety and for privacy reasons. Additionally, you should know the settings. Sometimes the default privacy settings allow for a limited profile to be seen by anyone. In order to make sure that your information is limited to your friends, go through the settings to set all posts, including statuses and pictures.
2. Do not add or accept requests from authority figures.
Even if you maintain impeccable profiles, allowing authority figures, such as relatives, teachers, or bosses, can be awkward. Many times, even if something is not inappropriate, social media websites are used among friends. You often don’t volunteer the information that you share with your friends with everyone you know, so you don’t want to invite people to know what you are up to. The rule is: don’t allow anyone to see something you don’t want to explain.
3. Think before you post!
A wise person once told me: Before I post anything online, I pretend like my boss, my grandmother, and the Pope are looking over my shoulder, proofreading. It seems a little extreme, but using this technique of filtering ensures that you don’t rashly post something that you’ll regret.
So why is it so important to keep good social media profiles? Future schools and employers tend to look at these as a judge of appropriateness. If you maintain them now, you won’t have to be worried as you apply for schools and jobs