Impact of Social Media October 1, 2007

We have all heard about how stupid Miss Tenn South Carolina is. The power of social media and networking may have consumed her in this case. Everyone has said something without completely thinking it through first.  There are plenty of times that I have sounded completely stupid and you can do little to nothing to redeem yourself in that situation.  Miss Teen South Carolina is a college student and since the majority of college students are using some sort of social medium,  I’m sure her comments on her page were pretty harsh.

Social Media at times can do more harm than most people realize.  Pictures of your party night the night before can be tagged on your Facebook page with you even knowing it.  Even companies and organizations can network on Facebook.  News feeds display all of your activity.

Here are some damaging examples:

I had a friend that will go unnamed that felt too sick to go into work one morning.  We will call him Bob the Boy.  Bob the Boy failed to call his boss (we’ll call him Boss) that day to explain his situation so he decided to wait for his next work day to explain his illness.  Unfortunately Boss was not satisfied with these series of events.  Upon logging into Facebook, Boss noticed that Bob the Boy had logged in and did some activity on Facebook during the hour he was supposed to be at work.  The news feed told Boss that Bob the Boy went out late the night before and did not get enough sleep to attend work.  Bob the Boy lost his job.

In the heat of the Tara Conner/Donald Trump drama, Facebook was often one to blame.  Pictures of excessive partying and late nights spread all over her social networks and eventually back to owner of the Miss USA Pageant, Donald Trump.  Here is an older article from People Magazine about how Trump issued a second chance to the pageant princess. Notice at the end of the article the fact that you can network this article to Del.ic.ious, Digg and Facebook as well.