糖心Vlog视频

Too Much Information

People often reveal more about themselves when communicating electronically than they do in person. Although the tendency to overshare is usually innocent, it can have consequences both personally and professionally.

Angry? Hate your boss? Hung over? Lonely? Many of the 1 billion people on Facebook and 500 million active Twitter users are all of these and more. And they don鈥檛 think twice about telling the world. Anyone who visits social media sites sees it every day: the constant chatter about everything from what people ate for breakfast to who hooked up last night to how the job鈥檚 going. On dating sites, users describe themselves in intimate, sometimes exaggerated detail or post risqu茅 photos as they search for companionship.

We just can鈥檛 stop talking about ourselves.

鈥�There are a lot of things people will say under the guise of electronic media that they wouldn鈥檛 say in person,鈥� says Ben Agger, a professor of sociology and humanities and director of UT Arlington鈥檚 . 鈥淧eople may reveal more about themselves when they type instead of talk. Self-revelation becomes routine when you can鈥檛 see someone鈥檚 eyes. No one blushes or holds听back.鈥�

That willingness is the topic of Dr. Agger鈥檚 book Oversharing: Presentations of Self in the Internet Age (2012, Routledge). He uses pornography as a metaphor for what鈥檚 happening. Matters that used to be private, both sexual and nonsexual, now commonly appear in public. This oversharing, he says, creates a 鈥減ornographic public sphere鈥� where everyone tells all, but few connect.

鈥�The Internet is a breeding ground of grandiosity as people crow about themselves and express their opinions,鈥� Agger writes. 鈥淚t also breeds the search for intimacy, even if this is electronic and not face to听face.鈥�

FAULTY CONNECTIONS

Agger calls oversharing a product of the search for connection. Unfortunately, electronic connections are often 鈥渇limsy and largely unfulfilling鈥� and rarely lead to real relationships, or what he calls community.

Agger is no Internet-hating Luddite. As he sipped coffee at a Starbucks near UT Arlington, he had a smartphone at hand, which he used periodically for texts involving family matters. Send him an email and you鈥檒l probably get a response in a half-hour or听less.

But he does call for moderation, especially among young people. He believes public discourse is declining as society, or at least the online segment, is more interested in gossip and day-to-day minutiae than real issues. Even in news coverage, the many online blogger/reporters make it easy to mistake opinion for听fact.

鈥�It is good that everyone wants to be part of the conversation, but they need to be studious and analytical. And the conversation, as I鈥檓 calling it, needs to be about important matters.鈥�

Whether you jeopardize your job by criticizing your boss in the conversation ultimately may be decided by the courts. Meanwhile, plenty of people post photos of themselves in compromising situations or complain about work without a thought to career implications.

News reports are full of cases where people were disciplined or lost their jobs over Facebook.

A teacher in Georgia says she was forced to resign after her bosses saw an expletive on her Facebook page and photos of her holding beer and wine. Employees for an airline were disciplined after they joked on Facebook that their planes were crawling with cockroaches. A New England Patriots cheerleader was fired because she posted photos on Facebook of a boy who passed out and then was covered with graffiti, some of it anti-Semitic, by pranksters.

Tales of employer snooping are widespread. The National Labor Relations Board sees so many social media-related cases that it has put out three reports in the past year covering various incidents and addressing workplace policies. Earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel of New York introduced a bill that would prohibit employers from requiring or requesting that employees provide user names and passwords to their social networking sites.

The surge in employment-related situations prompted the UT Arlington to create a workshop, Managing Your Digital Dirt, to educate students about the pitfalls of a reckless online presence. Career Center staff members conduct the seminar for campus groups. University College features the workshop as part of its Success Series, a suite of programs to aid students at various levels of their academic careers, including those students nearing graduation.

鈥�糖心Vlog视频 need to understand that what happens in the fun of college life may not necessarily stay in what they categorize as college life,鈥� Executive Director Dawn Remmers says. 鈥淭heir cyber-tracks can follow them to the workplace, and employers can make judgments about potential employees based on those fragments floating in cyberspace.鈥�

POST WITH CAUTION

A 2012 CareerBuilder survey found that 37 percent of companies use social networking sites to research job candidates. Managers at a third of those businesses said they鈥檝e discovered information that caused them not to hire a candidate, including inappropriate photos, discriminatory comments, and posts bad-mouthing previous employers.

As vice president of Marshall Career Service, Jim Ashworth 鈥�73 places senior-level accounting and financial professionals with major corporations in North 糖心Vlog视频. High-ranking executives aren鈥檛 exempt from bonehead mistakes, he says, citing one who posted a graphic handbook (with photos) about sexual positions.

But employers don鈥檛 browse online profiles just to dig up dirt. Almost 30 percent of managers in the CareerBuilder survey said they鈥檝e hired candidates because of things they saw on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Darren Nelson 鈥�07, 鈥�08, director of recruiting for Dr Pepper Snapple Group, says his company discourages the use of anything other than candidate r茅sum茅s, interviews, and references in making hiring decisions. But he understands why some corporations Google their top prospects.

鈥�Hiring the best talent is a daunting task, and there鈥檚 a great deal of risk involved,鈥� he says. 鈥淗iring managers in general may want to minimize that risk with as much information as possible, such as forum posts, Facebook pictures, LinkedIn pages, or any other public information that can be obtained through the Internet.鈥�

Agger would like to see more employers adopt the Dr Pepper Snapple policy of avoiding potential and current employees鈥� social media pages because they鈥檙e personal. But he concedes that 鈥減rospective employers, if they鈥檙e snoopy, will cross the line to look at your off-hours activities.鈥�

What you think is your own business may not be at all, although cases are still working their way through the courts. One lawsuit in federal court in Virginia involves a sheriff firing six public employees in 2009 when he noticed that one of them had clicked 鈥渓ike鈥� on his political opponent鈥檚 Facebook page.

When it鈥檚 a potential employer, you may never know whether your Internet sharing kept you from being hired. Employers will simply say they chose a more qualified candidate.

That鈥檚 a message Rebecca Neilson 鈥�00 drives home to scholars in the University鈥檚 , a select cohort of junior and senior business majors. Neilson, who earned a master鈥檚 degree in human resource management from UT Arlington, is director of Graduate Business Services in the and teaches a leadership course as a member of the Goolsby faculty.

鈥�We emphasize that how they portray themselves in social media circles can derail their possibilities of getting a job or perhaps keeping a job,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey need to keep their personal and professional lives separate and understand what is and is not appropriate to let their bosses and co-workers know.鈥�

Agger believes oversharing presents dangers to both individuals and society. In the opposite of his 鈥減ornographic public sphere,鈥� he writes that 鈥減eople wouldn鈥檛 simply lay themselves bare as they satisfy their voyeuristic and exhibitionistic tendencies, but they would read, study, and debate deep issues such as world overpopulation, global warming, domestic poverty, and the loss of neighborhood, among other issues.鈥�

He鈥檇 like to see parents wait until kids are well into their teens before giving them cellphones and then cut off usage at bedtime. As for adults, he suggests meeting potential partners in person instead of relying on online dating, 鈥渨hich resembles a meat market and discourages real commitment.鈥�

鈥�Facebook is useful for catching up with friends distant in time and space, sharing stories and photos. But it鈥檚 a petri dish of narcissism, and people should unplug from it,鈥� he says. 鈥淪ecretly, we all know that it鈥檚 boring, but like many addictions, we can鈥檛 live without it.鈥�

Twitter gets an even harder slap: 鈥淲e should resign from Twitter because tweeting our every location, activity, and random thought is pathetic and dumbs down the culture.鈥�

Agger advises to keep some mystery in your听life.

鈥�We will all be healthier and happier for tuning out and turning off the technologies of oversharing,鈥� he says. 鈥淥nly then can we begin really to share鈥攖o be intimate, to love, and to open ourselves to听love.鈥�

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