Teen reputations, jobs at risk

The two biggest risks for kids on social networks are cyberbullying (among young teens) and reputation tarnish for high school and college students. Teens need to become their own spin doctors in this age of overexposure - fast. "Researching students through social networking sites [is] now fairly typical," reports the New York Times in a front-page article Sunday. "Many career counselors have been urging students to review their pages on Facebook and other sites with fresh eyes, removing photographs or text that may be inappropriate to show to their grandmother or potential employers. Counselors are also encouraging students to apply settings on Facebook that can significantly limit access to their pages." The Times points to one new graduate who was passed up for a summer internship because of "interests" listed in his online profile such as "'smokin' blunts' (cigars … stuffed with marijuana), shooting people and obsessive sex.… It did not matter that the student was clearly posturing. He was done." High school students' experiences with summer jobs and applying for college admission will be no different, if their profiles and blogs aren't already being searched for "background checks." It has never been more important for social networkers to think before they post. If they're in denial about how public these sites are and not using privacy controls, they need to come out of it. (Parental caveat: Privacy features also reduce parents' ability to monitor social networkers, which is why parent-child communication is also more important than ever.)