Who's Watching You Online?

Over the years, I've written about the perils of young people (high schoolers and college students) being careless about what they post on the Internet about themselves. This applies mainly to the wonderful world of social media, Facebook, mainly. In a recent post, I noted, "I call Facebook The Home of Dirty Laundry. I do that with good reason. Facebook seems to satisfy people's desire to reveal far more about themselves than they would in person, among a group of friends or even strangers. The element of increased freedom, I think, comes from a false sense of security about the Internet, which is a big mistake in my view."

That post, which I made here on Admit This! three weeks ago, inspired several responses from others in the online community who not only agreed with me but also provided some interesting insights and statistics about the perils of Exposing Yourself Online, as my post was titled. One fairly amazing statistic that came in notes that 69% of companies have chosen not to hire based on something found on a social networking site, and 38% of college admissions officers say social media has negatively impacted a student's admission decision. Those stats should give all you Facebookers out there pause to consider the nature of your online exposures.