SOCIALLY SMART

Socially Smart

by

Alex Osburn, Ajay Singireddy, Jasmine Yang

Sixty seconds. Sixty-six thousand Instagram photos. Five hundred hours of YouTube videos. Upload. Two million, four hundred and thirty thousand Snapchats. Sixteen million texts. Send.

According to data visualization and software company DOMO’s 2022 Data Never Sleeps report, these are just a select few examples of the overwhelming amount of data created on the internet each minute. With digital users constantly putting more content into the online world, the permanence of this data can become grounds for concern. As director of research and strategy at digital design company Simple Focus, Kerry Crawford interacts daily with developing online programs that will eventually become part of some internet users’ digital reputation.

“A digital footprint is a record of a person’s online activity. It’s like a breadcrumb trail of data that you leave every time you do anything online,” Crawford said.

“Your footprint grows the more you share things, or when sites or social networks track your activity. Once that footprint is made, it’s almost impossible to get rid of.”

A possible struggle with figuring out how to maintain a strong, positive digital footprint. Dean Aaron Karrer explains a simple criteria students here can follow.

“Expected behavior is expected behavior,” Karrer said. “What we ask you to do to be a responsible student, to be a responsible citizen for that matter, are things that we’re going to ask you to do online.”

The desire to fit within societal standards can outweigh moral obligations in one’s brain when deciding whether to post something or not. Sophomore Eli Psota describes how social media sets the standards for trends and what should be known. from Snapchat,” Meng said. “And so I think there’s this false sense of ‘oh I’ve got this, I can get rid of this, I can make this go away.’ We see [this] with celebrities all the time, ‘oh so and so tweeted this, the world got a screenshot of it,’ and they deleted it 30 seconds later. A lot of the internet is forever, even if we think we can get rid of it.”

“I do think social media does have an impact on my life because it kind of sets trends for what I do and what other people around me do,” Psota said.

Due to the long-term nature of online actions, it is important for digital citizens to always be aware of the audience their posts, messages and comments could eventually reach.

Along with shared screenshots or secret videos, other consequences from one’s actions on social media or other online platforms can ensue in the future. Crawford shares some advice to avoid such repercussions.

Dean

“Honestly, the less you put out there, the better,” Crawford said. “I think it’s good to assume that if you put it out there, even on a private account, that it could be public. Screenshots exist, and you can only sometimes tell if someone has taken one.”

A primary concern when it comes to social media is the problem of the unknown. There is no way for anybody to know what actions other people decide to take when looking at somebody’s social media post. Cari Meng, Director of Housing at Denison University, describes possible consequences of the unknown.

“There’s no telling who recorded something on someone else’s phone

“If you post something by accident and you realize it quickly, delete it as fast as possible,” Crawford said. “Also, remember that you’re human. Let’s say that you’re in high school or college and you make a joke that you think is funny at the time, but years later, it can be read as insensitive or offensive. If you get called out on it, it’s best to own it and apologize.”

Although users can face harmed reputations for posts considered offensive, uninformed actions can also lead to negative outcomes down the line. Sophomore Allie Long experienced this firsthand as a young internet user.

“I started off on social media when I was really young and I really didn’t know to not post certain things, so there’s probably a lot of stuff about me when I was eight [and] just posting random things,” Long said.

When she was nine, Long posted a video that developed into a frightening lesson about the realities of the online world.

“I had a YouTube channel when I was a little kid and I got death threat comments on my YouTube gamer video, and I was like, ‘woah,’” Long said. “It made me kind of realize how anybody would just go on social media and say anything, even if they don’t know who you are.”

While issues similar to this persist today, there have been methods enacted in order to combat these issues.

“I like that on YouTube now they block the comments off if it’s a kid posting a video. I think that’s really good,” Long said. “I feel like they’ve added more restrictions on social media for little kids now.”

For students here, any kind of online behavior that poses a risk to the learning environment can lead to disciplinary action. Karrer explains the criteria used to evaluate the need for severe consequences. Ultimately, Karrer believes a main takeaway from the widespread effects of social media presence is to always be cognizant that others can find the origin of harmful or insensitive content.

“Anything you say and do online, given enough information and foresight, we can find what you say,” Karrer said.

Making a mistake online can have larger consequences than a simple trip to a dean’s office. One’s digital footprint can follow them in their future, including when they are further along in their educational career. Meng describes the role social media presence plays in hiring students as residential assistants.

“Our hall of directors, the people who live in residence with students, we do check out their social media as well because the first thing you do as a student is look someone up online,” Meng said.

One effective way to maintain a positive digital footprint is simply thinking before posting. Meng describes a few questions one can ask themselves to properly consider all possible repercussions.

“How would you feel if it was on the front page of the newspaper,” Meng said. “How would you feel if your grandparents saw it? And there will always be people who say ‘I don’t care. I don’t care what other people think.’ And that’s fine, until it starts to impact your life. So my best suggestion is don’t assume that just because you don’t use your last name on your social media that it can’t be traced back to you. Don’t assume that you and get rid of it. Try to put it through that grandparent test or the front page of the newspaper test before you post it.”

dean intervention in such instances.

“The biggest thing that I think kids need to understand when it comes to their digital footprint and social media is that any behavior that would be found to be in violation of school policy, then if it affects the school day in any type of way,” Karrer said. “If it affects a safe environment, if it affects a student’s ability to perform their job at school, then we’re required to act.”

The repercussions for irresponsible and harmful digital actions can range from a dean’s conference to more

All students, not just those looking for employment, are subject to disciplinary action or other repercussions if they breach institution policy at any point in their social media career.

“For instance, taking a picture of someone who’s passed out drunk somewhere, or someone who maybe is revealing too much of themselves and can’t consent to that photo being taken, that’s a pretty serious violation of most codes of student conduct,” Meng said. “And yeah, those sorts of things happen on college campuses a lot. I think the main thing to remember is that even if a student, whether it’s a high school student or a college student, even if a student goes back, deletes the post, scrubs their whole social media profile, there’s no telling who got a screenshot of that.”

It is possible for negative actions similar to the examples Meng mentioned above to have immediate consequences, no matter what efforts are taken to delete it. Although digital footprints have the potential to bring past errors to light at any time, there are still actions online citizens can take to be proactive about improving the first impression they put forward.

“So, for instance let’s say you post something, someone gets a screenshot of it, there’s no way to pretend like ‘that wasn’t me.’ You just have to own it and apologize and so at that point, think about the harmed parties,” Meng said. “Maybe it’s just yourself, and in that situation, all you can do is own it and be like ‘yeah, it was in poor taste, but I did that, which is why I deleted it, but yeah, I did put that out there for a moment.’”

67% of internet users are not aware of their country’s privacy and data

44% of people have experienced some form of harassment on the internet

79% of internet users feel they have completely lost control over their personal data