Social Networking? Now It's Social Exploitation

            Debating topics. Something I will never say no to. I'm an opinionated person, and if someone doesn't agree with one of my beliefs, I will respectfully debate the topic with them. It's fun for me. Not in a trying to convert your beliefs way, but just in getting the other side of the story from someone else. Debating is always an interesting way to figure out why someone believes what they do. For speech class, I was assigned a "perception project". The goal: to ask several people the same controversial question, and compare everyone's answers, describing what makes them believe what they do. Maybe it has to do with their age, race, or background. Regardless, an interesting project.
             Today we began presenting our findings in these mini-field studies. One person brought up what I believe to be a particularly interesting topic for teenagers. Social Networking Sites--Facebook in particular. In todays day of age, not only are sites like Facebook used to stay connected with faraway relatives or try and learn as much as you can about the one you have a crush on. Now colleges and even employers are using Facebook to check out potential students or employees. If these administrators see incriminating comments or racy pictures, it may jeopardize your future.
              The even more debated part of this topic is that now high school administrators are checking out student Facebooks, looking for anything that may break school code. If coaches, councilors, or deans see pictures even suggesting the consumption of alcohol or illegal drugs, they have grounds to punish. Severely. I know people who have been kicked off of their sports teams because of one simple picture of them with a beer in their hands at a party.
              Personally, I wouldn't care at all if a university or work place were to look at my Facebook. While the fact that going on a trip to Disney World with my family is pretty racy, I put pictures of that vacation up for the world to see. No one forced me to. If I'm comfortable with the rest of the world seeing what I post, that I have to be sure that I'm alright with colleges seeing that too.
              My message is: if you're going to drink, party, and be stupid in high school, fine, it's your life--it's still idiotic--but you can do what you want if you understand the risks. But my suggestion is that you should keep at least part of your life private. Facebook doesn't need to see that you had a wild night of drinking, I don't care how perfect your fake tan looks in the picture, that great profile picture will not be worth it when you get kicked off of your sports team, rejected from your dream school, or passed up for the job you've earned.