Experts to students: Watch what you post

Information on sites such as MySpace.com could come back to haunt

From eSchool News staff and wire service reports

With the rise in social networking sites such as MySpace.com, experts are warning that students need to exercise more discretion in what they post about themselves online. Besides the obvious danger of posting personally identifying information, they say, the potential exists for embarrassing information to come back to bite students later in life when they apply for college or a job.

February 10, 2006—Much has been made of the danger of posting too much personal information on web sites such as MySpace.com, where millions of people--including online child predators--can, in seconds, find out where site users go to school, learn their interests, download their pictures, and instantly send them messages.

But there is another, less widely reported danger as well: that the information students post online could come back to haunt them later in life.

In recent weeks, a Dover, Del., newspaper reporter was fired from his job after someone alerted his editor to racially offensive comments he had posted to his personal blog on MySpace.com--and seven Lincoln, Neb., high school students were suspended for two weeks when a school staff member found a MySpace.com posting that mentioned the students drinking alcohol.

"This is a new arena for us," said Wendy Henrichs, athletic director for Lincoln East High School, where the seven suspended students were all varsity and junior varsity basketball players. "In the '70s or '80s ... people would say those things. Today, they write them."

She added, "The difference is putting it in print, basically documented proof of what's been said. I don't know if kids understand that."

MySpace, one of several popular social networking sites, is a free service that allows users to create web site profiles of themselves that can be personalized with information, pictures, and movies. MySpace reportedly boasts more than 180,000 new members per day and, according to web site traffic ranking service Alexa, was the seventh most popular destination for English--speaking internet users as of press time.

While today's students are undeniably savvy in their knowledge and adoption of technology, they aren't always as savvy in how they choose to deploy it--and often they are only vaguely aware of the digital "footprint" they leave behind when they post personal information.

And this footprint could play an increasingly important role in whether students land their dream job or even get into the college of their choice, experts say.

A recent Harris Interactive poll showed that 23 percent of people search the names of business associates or colleagues on the internet before meeting them--which probably means many employers are doing the same with job applicants, said Andrea Kay, a career consultant and author of "Interview Strategies That Will Get You the Job You Want."

"It's a wake--up call: You better be careful what you say and do, because it is your reputation. You're developing it early on," Kay said.

Many employers hire companies to conduct background checks, but "Googling" job applicants serves as an additional tool. It makes sense, especially when young applicants have few references or the job involves responsibility for people's health or finances, said Charles Fleischer, an employment lawyer and author of "The Complete Hiring and Firing Handbook."

Given the relative ease of investigating someone online and the rate of technology's penetration into the college admissions process, it's conceivable that college admissions officers, too, could soon be Googling prospective students.

College admissions officers who spoke with eSchool News said it wasn't part of their typical practice yet--but if the trend of employers Googling applicants spreads to education, that could change.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=6106