I don’t know much about technology but I do know that Instagram is the new app to use on most phones.
Instagram is basically like a picture blog that people use to show other people what they see or feel like showing people throughout the day. It is popular with college students, businesses and promotions. People “follow” you on Instagram just like they would on Facebook and they can “like” your pictures and “comment” on them. I’ve seen people pictures ranging from 100 to 10,000; same goes for the amount of friends people have on this new app.
How safe is it? If you keep your profile on private, no one can really follow you unless you accept their request. Obviously don’t be information on it but there is a way you can “tag” the location that is in the picture. Tagging the location puts the photo on a map along with other pictures you have tagged.
Being that Instagram is like the new Facebook, people can just type in your name and they might be able to find you. On that note, don’t be stupid with what you put on instagram. Don’t take pictures of you smoking weed and doing drugs and put it on instagram just like you wouldn’t put the pictures on Facebook. These pictures are incriminating and may not be able to get you in trouble but they can prevent you from getting a job.
I have recently applied to five different internships in Manhattan and Brooklyn for the summer and for next fall; everything is now online so it is easier to fill out applications. Four out of those five employees asked for a way to reach me besides email or phone call; I took this as them meaning my Facebook or Instagram. I emailed them telling them that they can look me up on Facebook by my full name and I gave them my name on Instagram.
As soon as I did this, I panicked a little bit. I don’t have incriminating photos on either applications but I do have pictures that I wouldn’t want to see my future employers to see. Just giving you some advice, before you give out your Facebook and Instagram information to your employers, look at your profiles and think “Would I hire myself after looking at some of these pictures?”
According to Facebook, “Information you share online – on Facebook or anywhere else – always has the ability to be copied, pasted, and re-distributed in ways that you might not have intended. What you do today could still be accessible to people in the future and could be relevant to your job searches down the road. Be aware of the longevity of your digital footprint and the future impact of the decisions you make today.”
There is privacy control on Facebook and Instagram; privacy controls the limits that other people have to access or not access your specific posts you create on every social network. Protect the privacy of your photos, videos and status updates by choosing to share your personal information with friends and not with everyone on your social network.
Use this privacy control on social networks to block not only future employers but people who don’t know you at all. There is still a way to be private on the internet, take advantage of the privacy that is available.
At the end of the day, just be careful with what you put on these new social networks. Potential employers might determine if they should hire you depending on what you are like on a Friday night.
