Szymielewicz’s article states that social media profiles are like an onion with layers. Those layers start with the inner layer that is what you share. For example, these things would be your friends, gender, blocked contacts, likes, real name, date of birth, and many more personal details about yourself. The middle layer is what your behavior tells the social media site. These behaviors would include ads viewed, ads clicked on, content blocked, content consumed, time zones, typing speeds, shopping patterns, and other behaviors that one doesn’t even realize that social media sites can observe. The outer layer is what the machine thinks about you. The social media site takes the information they have collected about you from the inner layer and middle layer and forms an opinion and observation about you. The social media sites can then add up things about you such as IQ level, places of living, formal places of living, professional relationships, if you’re away from your family or hometown if you’re a compulsive shopper, gay/lesbian, and other inferences about you that are extremely personal. I believe that this break down of the social media site is accurate because I see it happening on my own site. For example, my social media page knows my birthdate is in April. Then I saw an ad pop up for a horoscope reading for Aries that was extremely juicy. I clicked on the ad and then the next thing I know I’m getting pushed more ads for horoscope apps on my profile page.
Many places that are searching for a new employee use the process of looking through your social media sites to see what you are posting. They do this to get a background of what type of person you are outside of a professional setting. Jobs use social media because they think that your social media account is an accurate representation of you as a person. Szymielewicz says that it isn’t true. People aren’t willing to put themselves out there all the way in real life let alone social media where double the number of people you know can see. A person may not post about their disability, disease, or disorder because they may not feel comfortable to. They may not post about how they handled the fight they had with the person that cut them off on their way to the mall last night. On social media pages, people put their best selves forward. What I mean by this is that people try to post what makes them look the best. For example, they may post pictures of them going on a trip that they worked hard to afford or that they went to the local charity benefit three days ago. They also may like certain things on social media to make themselves look better even if they have no interest in the topic such as animal shelters, nonprofit organizations, or even the local newspapers, schools, or businesses. Although I agree with Szymielewicz, I do understand why people do use this method for recruiting for college sports or jobs. They do this because there are some people that don’t understand a majority of places view this as an accurate representation of the future employee or player. I have some friends on social media where I shake my head because I can tell a boss or coach will go to their page see a couple of posts and then be disinterested. Certain posts such as “can’t wait to get drunk tonight”, “life f***ing sucks”, or even a posted argument between their significant other. Immediately the company or school sees this and thinks “what if something goes wrong at work” or “what if something goes wrong on the team”. Then they think if they’re posting about simple setbacks or are so open to talking poorly on the web where everyone can see/access it, they think I don’t what that person representing my company, sports team, or school.
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AuthorI am Olivia Golay and I attend Saint Bonaventure University. These blog posts are from the class I am currently taking, English 325: Writing in Digital Environments. ArchivesCategories |