ZHIVOTOVSKI: Think before oversharing on social media
Column: Are You Thinking What I Am Thinking?
It is safe to say that for most people under the age of 30, social media plays a significant role in their day-to-day lives. Whether you wake up and immediately reach for your phone to do the routine in-bed morning scroll or just enjoy checking in on friends and family through Facebook, social media saturates our lives.
In this age of bearing it all on the internet, what information is taking it too far? When is it time to draw the line, and how do we decide what is better kept private or public?
A large issue with current internet usage is that everyone has become too comfortable on social media. With the ease of hiding behind a screen, more and more people feel they can share parts of their lives that no one wants to see and opinions that would otherwise have been kept to themselves.
Influencers especially bear it all. From streaming their birth videos and infant children on YouTube to participating in dangerous and destructive challenges simply for views, this new age of social media is one of oversharing.
We all have those friends who seemingly document their whole lives through Instagram reels and Snapchat stories, sharing their most mundane to concerningly intimate moments for all their followers to see. The line of privacy no longer exists. It has been erased — not by big corporations or entities, but by ourselves.
On top of the excessive sharing of daily rituals, social media users have become quasi-activists. Recall the last major newsworthy event to occur — how many of your friends rushed to repost the same five infographics with little to no information, unsubstantiated claims and feigned concern for issues clearly outside their scope of knowledge?
Not only is this practice becoming tedious for the everyday social media user who does not want to be berated with the same information from every other person they follow, but it also feels ingenuine — how can something so widely reused and redistributed possibly be an issue most people are knowledgeable about and concerned over?
The answer is it is not. And even more alarmingly, how many of these people have verified that the information they share is accurate before posting? I would have to assume that few to no users have, leading to a sea of misinformation that clouds the relevant and important news concerning the subject.
So where does that leave us? How can we sort out who has genuine concerns, actionable solutions and valuable information to share regarding a current issue and who has simply hopped on the social media activist bandwagon?
Taking a moment of pause before posting to social media is a practice many of us need to get in the habit of doing. Not only can it make the social media experience more user-friendly for those of us who do not wish to know every intimate detail of people's lives, but it can also help alleviate the rise of misinformation that is typical of the news cycle these days.
Perhaps an even bigger incentive in re-evaluating our use of social media should be the perception of our digital footprint, a term many of us are familiar with but do not fully understand the scope of.
Our digital footprint is the "trail of information" our internet use leaves behind, which is not limited to but largely includes our social media. More and more, this digital footprint is becoming a form of currency when it comes to university admissions and job prospects.
As more employers begin to understand the value of checking prospective employees' digital footprints, it is becoming an important factor in determining what sorts of employees the company truly wants to hire. It can honestly make or break someone's application if they have a questionable social media presence that detracts from their strengths as job candidates.
It is important to recognize that in 2022, approximately 80 percent of companies required some sort of social media background check. Even sites like LinkedIn offer digital footprint resume workshops. People are clearly associating social media with your identity, which ultimately shapes your perception of who you are.
So the next time you open Instagram or X, formerly known as Twitter, to overshare or post something questionable, pause and reflect on the type of image you are portraying. Is this something you can or want to be associated with for the rest of your life?
Chances are half of the relevant topics you think about posting will rub potential employers or distant friends the wrong way. Privacy is a skill we must practice ourselves if we wish for it to take root in society — a skill many of us would benefit from.
Emily Zhivotovski is a senior in the School of Arts and Sciences majoring in cell biology and neuroscience and minoring in health and society. Her column, "Are You Thinking what I am Thinking," runs on alternate Wednesdays.
*Columns, cartoons and letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Targum Publishing Company or its staff.
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