Be Careful What You Blog
According to an article in today's Washington Post concerning the rise of blogging and the potential impact that revealing personal information online will have in the future, a staggering 79 percent of teens believe that people their age are not careful enough when giving out information about themselves online.
I believe that this is a critical mistake that has the potential to stir up trouble in the future. For some reason people today have misgivings about using a credit card online to make purchases, but at the same time have no problem revealing the most intimate details of their lives to total strangers. People do not feel guarded when blogging for instance because there is a certain degree of anonymity behind the concept.
I would advise anyone who has any inkling in them whatsoever that one day they might want to run for public office to be as careful as they can when sharing personal information about themselves online. I agree that something as innocent as a Facebook profile where someone puts a drunk picture of them up and belongs to groups that focus around drinking, partying and drugs, might not be a big deal today because of the college culture, it could potentially open a very nasty can of worms for the candidate in the future.
When trying to decide how much information is too much, I would use stick to the conservative side. I would never post anything that would cast me in a negative light, because fifteen years down the road my Facebook profile from when I was only twenty-two could potentially cause a lot of damage to me as a candidate.
I believe that this is a critical mistake that has the potential to stir up trouble in the future. For some reason people today have misgivings about using a credit card online to make purchases, but at the same time have no problem revealing the most intimate details of their lives to total strangers. People do not feel guarded when blogging for instance because there is a certain degree of anonymity behind the concept.
I would advise anyone who has any inkling in them whatsoever that one day they might want to run for public office to be as careful as they can when sharing personal information about themselves online. I agree that something as innocent as a Facebook profile where someone puts a drunk picture of them up and belongs to groups that focus around drinking, partying and drugs, might not be a big deal today because of the college culture, it could potentially open a very nasty can of worms for the candidate in the future.
When trying to decide how much information is too much, I would use stick to the conservative side. I would never post anything that would cast me in a negative light, because fifteen years down the road my Facebook profile from when I was only twenty-two could potentially cause a lot of damage to me as a candidate.
1 Comments:
I agree, the statistics you cited on teens and blogging are a huge concern for the education industry.
I recently attended a conference on educational technology and during a session on blogging, this was the #1 concern raised by parents, teachers, administrators, etc.
I think there is a lack of information available to parents out there warning about the risks of blogging since it's gained popularity over the past year or so. I for one, would like to see this change.
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