“What is your profile saying about you? Who do you want the
world to see?”
I think it
is important for my students to look at their friends on social media and
describe them. Maybe put them in categories such as positive, negative,
complains a lot, inappropriate, funny etc. This will let them see what kinds of
groups they are hanging around with.
It seems like so many people I know are
connecting through social media and I learn so much about them from this. I don’t
know whether all that I’m learning is true or not but I can make logical
assumptions from the information I’ve seen.
I have one friend who is very depressed and
shares when she is depressed with everyone. She seems to need everyone
encouraging her to help her make it through the day.
I have several friends who love to travel and
I look forward to seeing their travel pictures that they share. Of course, I
love to travel too so either the pictures bring back happy memories or I see
places that I want to see.
I have friends who love to hike and they
share many of their hiking and nature pictures on social media. These are
always fun to look at.
I have many friends who love their families
and like to share a lot of family activities that they do together. This tells
me that family is important to them.
There are some friends who love to share
jokes or amusing stories. I look forward to these posts because they make me
smile. When people are very positive and uplifting, I’m glad to have them as my
friends on social media.
I have some friends who just like to
complain. They complain about things that happen in their daily life or events
that are happening in the world. They seem to love to complain. These people
are not close friends to me and if they get too negative, I usually disconnect
from our friendship. I don’t like to voluntarily bring negativity into my life.
After noticing this about my friends, I took
a look at myself. I try to be positive every morning and others notice this
because they have commented about it when I see them that they look forward to
this. Apparently they like it because it has made a positive impact on them. I
try not to talk negative about anyone or anything because I was brought up
that “if I have nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all.”
Now if I do have a problem with a company or
complaint, I don’t have a problem sharing it in hopes that the company will see
it and resolve the problem. I also don’t make a habit of this so if I do post
something like this, my friends know that I’m pretty upset.
I like to share educational posts that I
write or find because many of the people I connect with are educators. Some
non-educators appreciate the links to these posts also. Some people see me as a
resource for information.
I like to share some funny posts that I get
because I think everyone likes to smile. I won’t share anything that is rude,
obscene or uses profanity but usually generally funny.
I try to remember that I don’t really know
who my audience is. Yes, I have friends who are connected but I don’t know who
they might show my posts to so I don’t write anything that would make me feel
embarrassed if my parents or my employers saw them. This usually is a good rule
of thumb to follow and students should start with this rule too.
Now that many colleges and employers are
looking at social media, it is important to put our best face forward. This
should start as soon as a person begins to interact on social media.
How do you think your profile reflects
yourself? How do you teach your students to look at this and put their best
face forward?
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