Reputation Management in the 21st Century

After reading the first half of lol ... OMG! by Matt Ivester, I am convinced that this should be required reading for students in high school, before they make too much of an online reputation that will stay with them like a true permanent record. I actually used the threat of the old-school permanent record with two of my advisory students, boys in 8th grade who have been getting into trouble constantly to the point of outside suspension. Their attitude is that they are in 8th grade and what they do in middle school doesn't matter. I lied and told them that their punishment record in school is part of their cumulative file that colleges review, but now it occurs to me that this is becoming more and more true. Students post videos of fights that they or others have either in school or in the neighborhood without thinking about future consequences, legal or otherwise. It is entirely conceivable that in the near future a fight a child has in 8th grade or some other misbehavior that makes its way online will have an impact on that child's academic, professional, and social future. I once sent a message to a former student who is now a friend on Facebook about the numerous posts he'd made about drinking during his first year at college. I warned him about the permanence of those kinds of posts and the negative impression it leaves on future potential employers (not to mention the dangers of underage binge drinking). He has definitely reduced the amount of posts he makes about his weekend activities, but this is a message that needs to get out to all of our young people so that youthful indiscretions don't impact their long-term future.

In Chapter 5, Ivester talks about social background checks that can be performed legally before a company hires a potential employee. A company called Social Intelligence will scour the internet for a person's social media footprint and send a report of any items of potential concern. These include liking pages on Facebook that can indicate discriminatory feelings or potential violent tendencies. Any innocuous or flippant remark can be used against a candidate if it is caught and flagged by this service. This article on Gizmodo describes what information is found and the format of the report sent to the employer, and it highlights for me why it is so important to teach students to be careful with what they post online. One way that educators can help students practice the kind of conscious creation of content that Ivester prescribes is to teach them to pause and reread before sending an email or submitting a comment. Students can write about a controversial topic, then take a pause of 30 seconds and reread their comments. The class can then discuss any insights the students may have had during the rereading. After that discussion, students reread again, making any revisions they feel are necessary. Then, they can "send" the response to other classmates for comments, mimicking the process of online commenting. When students receive their original response back, they can see how the other people in the class reacted to their words. It could also be extended over a few days, so students have a longer break between crafting the words and "sending" it to their peers. This type of activity can help students see the benefits of taking a moment to read and edit their comments before clicking "send" or "upload"and being more conscious about what they post online.