How are you presenting yourself online?
It is frightening to me that anything I send or post on the internet can come back to haunt me in the years to come. What about this blog? Years from now, if I ever decide to run for public office, are my words as a 19 year old going to come to light and be held against me? Probably. And what about my facebook profile? I will without a doubt never be elected to public office if anyone sees my facebook pictures. I am not a particularly bad kid, but simply one picture out there of me holding a beer will secure a reputation as a “party girl”. But there is really nothing I could do about it besides removing all personal information from the internet. Emily Nussbaum is correct that young people have taken a nonchalant attitude about this lack of privacy. Living with the internet for a large majority of our lives, we have accepted that we cannot control what is being seen by others. We either forfeit our freedom of speech or accept that that freedom does not mean control. We can say or show what we want, but we cannot expect information to do nothing. Fortunately, I have no desire to run for public office. But I still worry about what future employers might see. Personally, if I was an employer I would not hire many of my classmates after seeing their facebooks. Despite the fact that personal life should have nothing to do with work life, people are judged by their internet persona. An internet persona that can unfortunately be googled by anyone whenever they like.