As I write this blog my facebook profile has no less than 430 pictures with my tag on it. All are pictures of me from various events from the past 3 years of my life. The pictures are from various occasions; parties, birthdays, holidays, graduation and so on. When I first signed up on facebook I was surprised and amazed of how this social media allowed me to get hold of lost friends and co-workers that I have somehow lost contact with over the years. Especially being abroad a semester here in Barcelona I find it useful to keep updated what my friends and family at home are up to. When travelling or even on exchange as I am now facebook is also brilliant in creating common events, get hold of all the pictures from the famous nights in town and so on.
However, despite all these advantages I am beginning to worry a bit. When I skim through the pictures uploaded on my profile I must admit that some of them are less flattering than others. More than a few are from a night in town and my face it thus accompanied by some sort of beverage. These less flattering images makes me wonder if the boundries of what you put online still has the same validation. All over the news we are now being reminded that once something a photo, a blog or something else is posted on the internet it never goes away! No matter what you do they will never go away. I think people, myself included, are becoming a little bit scared of how this could affect you in the future.
I recently read an article about how managers use facebook when avaluating their candidates. Facebook is such a good and valid to to show the “real” person behind the application so an increasing number of companies actually use facebook to “scan” their candidates applying for a position. I do fear that when employees skim through my profile they might get the wrong idea. Do my photos in facebook really illustrate the real me or should I start to think twice about what is put out there?
These 430 pictures ARE part of me, but im not I want my future employee to only take that into consideration when deciding whether im the right person for the job. That being said, I think I should start limiting the vast amount of photos on my profile…
Tags: facebook, social media
