Recently you may have heard that Harvard rescinded the admission of 10 students of the class of 2021 because of exchanges of sexually offensive and racist Facebook messages. These students took for granted that they were accepted and didn’t think for a second that they could do anything to change their destiny. But they did.
When I first heard of this, I wasn’t shocked or surprised. In fact, this isn’t the only incident of students posting offensive messages on the internet and then paying for it later. For the most part, teens are unaware of consequences, because many have never had to deal with them.
We live in a time that within a second someone can post a comment and give an opinion and not think about the impact of their words unless someone (or an institution) takes bold steps and calls them out on their bad behavior. Now that the most prestigious university in the world has taken a stance on bad social media behavior, I am certain we will see more institutions following in their footsteps.
I hope parents take the opportunity to talk with their children about the impact their words and pictures have in this digital age. Nothing is private, and once we put something out onto the interwebs it is there forever. No photo or comment is private and everything is searchable.
Today, part of the interview process for most employers includes searching all social media platforms to make sure that prospects have an appropriate image to represent a company. Something that is posted as a teen can haunt them years later.
I believe we all represent our own image and brand. We show who we are by what we say, do and how we present ourselves. What we post on social media represents our personal branding. Take the time to ask your teen about what their personal brand is. What are their values? What matters most to them? How do they represent it? How does their social media match or conflict with their personal branding? How do they want to be seen, not by their friends, but by future bosses or colleagues?
I would love to hear how your conversations are going with your teens. What are you learning about how your teen represents him or herself? How aware is she about her digital footprint? Feel free to leave a comment.
Much love,
Andrea
