By Sarah Newton
It seems long gone are the days when as employers we can forget social media and how we can use it to connect with potential or new employees. However many employers are concerned about the information their employees are sharing on social media sites and there have been cases of employees been sacked for letting off steam about their job on Facebook. But is that really fair? Can we expect this digital generation not to share information and should we judge them for it?
A recent Pew research stated that Gen Y is set to continue to share information.
It looks like this is to become a very hot topic.
“Generation Y Millennials will continue their current habit of sharing large amounts of personal information online as they age, according to the recent “Future of the Internet” study from the Centre’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Centre.
Sixty-seven percent of technology experts and 69% of total survey respondents agreed with a statement that said in part, “By 2020, members of Generation Y will continue to be ambient broadcasters who disclose a great deal of personal information in order to stay connected and take advantage of social, economic, and political opportunities.”
And knowing youth the way I do, I have to agree the trend will continue. Generation Z are at an early age showing more openness and willingness to share much more information than we ever have before. Where will it end? Well I have to say it won’t. I don’t think so and while I think users may get much more choosy about who they share with and what and think.
With Facebook recently reaching the grand total of 500 million and Mark Zuckerberg halting any please make certain things more private due to his belief that we all have one identity and we should be able to just be that, where does this leave us older generations. Well confused mostly.
Most employers are at a total loss to understand this need for sharing especially if it may get them into trouble at work or heaven forbid they say something bad about them as a employer. And with a mindset not brought up in a digital world we can’t. Aleks Krotoski (presenter of The Virtual Revolution) was recently asked on a programme should we be concerned about the digital imprint youth are leaving and what that may say to a potential employer. Alex said no, as an employer we should be more concerned if we can’t find a digital imprint. I hope I got this right Alex, I am paraphrasing.
In essence what she was saying was that it is now normal for us to see pictures of our employees having a good time dressed up for the last fancy dress party and to see a few status updates of how bad their job went today. This is not going away and we need to get used to it and find strategies to deal with it.
As employers we should ask how fair it is to delve into the private lives of our employees, even if they have invited us and as employees, we need to ask if it is a good idea to be friends with our boss.
I do think these are areas that need to be looked at and people need to give serious consideration to. As an employer you either friend none of your employees or you friend all of them under the proviso that anything you see, read etc. will not affect their work.
And as employees we need to decide what we want to do. Do we never friend our boss/work colleagues or do we friend them and know we may need to edit or moderate some of our posts?
I’m not sure what the answer is, I just know there has to be one. What do you think?
My kids are 17 and 15 and so they have grown up with this whole way of thinking. I advise them to remember to speak and behave on social networking sites as they would anywhere in real life. Being mindful of what they say, how they say it and to whom they say it – as this stuff sticks around for ever !
I encourage the parents I coach, not to put their head in the sand over all this new technology and exciting new ways to communicate globally. But as in Life generally – it’s ALL about balance. I think parents need to be open to embrace it, kids need to be mindful what they talk about as they may find it comes back to bite them in an interview if they are not careful and aware of the technologies implications.
We all need boundaries around the amount of time we spend on our technology, and to understand the wonderful as well as the dangerous and addictive nature to this new way of communicating. I find Seth Godin’s books, blogs and work to be fascinating about the positive ways to embrace our 21st century communications.
Thought provoking post Sarah – as always great stuff !
Sue Atkins
Author of “Raising Happy Children for Dummies”
I agree with all you are saying here. I just don’t know what the answer is. I do see privacy becoming more and more rare in the future. This generation seems to have a different view of privacy than past generations. I fear for my kids. I try to teach them as Sue says above, but I just don’t know where exactly we are headed. Kind of scary.
@Sue Yes you are right it is here it is not going anywhere so we need to get use to it for sure. Just starting the conversation helps even if we don’t always have the answers.
@Dalia yes it is scary and exciting I think at the same time. I think all we can do is atrt having the conversation with our children even if we don’t know the answer. At least of we are opne to talking they are more likley to come to us when there is a problem