Protecting Your Online Identity and Reputation

Protecting Your Online Identity and Reputation

Social networking sites began as a means for people to communicate and share online without the need for meeting in person but now have grown to be used for much more than initially intended. When social networking sites started launching they were more widely used by younger people such as students in colleges and high schools rather than adults. Many adults didn't start getting into social n
etworking until Myspace and the more popular Facebook came
along. As more and more people use these social networking sites the need for protecting your identity and reputation online grows.




Adult's Online Activity:
As adults we need to only post items on our page that we wouldn't mind our employers or authority figures to see. Your reputation with your friends, family, and employers is now heavily based on how we conduct ourselves online. Social networking is not just for personal use
anymore. Employers are checking social networking sites to get more information than any resume or application can provide, they're getting personal information. Personal information doesn't only hinder your career search, but can also open you up for identity theft. Identity theft is ever
growing and social networking is making it easier than ever to steal someones identity. With only a
few pieces of information such as an address, full name, and birthday criminals can set up accounts or credit cards in your name. Even information such as pets names, family members names, schools

attended, and vehicles owned could help a criminal guess your passwords or answer your security questions to gain access to online bank accounts or other important online accounts. So as adults it is our ethical duty to keep our online reputation presentable and our important information and even seemingly unimportant information offline to protect our reputation and identity.




Adolescent's Online Activity:
For children/teens it may seem like there is less to worry about online seeing as that there are no potential employers to disappoint or any financial information worth stealing, but the threats to children on social networking sites could be more severe than that of adults. Young people have a heavy dependency on social reputation, especially in school. Children posting too much personal
information online can lead to discrimination and bias towards them based on things they like/dislike or believe. The children who are discriminate or bias toward other children could end up spreading rumors or bullying them. Rumors and bullying were bad enough during school hours and home used to be a place to get away from the drama. Now with nearly every child using social networking, cyber-bullying gossip spreads to more people and last longer than without

having the internet involved. Bullying on such a large scale can have negative impacts on youth's development into adults such as depression and poor social skills. There are many downsides to children posting too much information online, but the most severe may be sexual predators. With children/teens posting their addresses, phone numbers, photos, and daily activities online they are more at risk for kidnapping or attack. It is easy for an adult to create a fake account with a fake photo of a younger person to become friends online to get more information from an online profile or even try to contact the potential victim. All it takes is a post or status update that hints that the parents may not be around for a predator to attack. It is very important to make sure that children do not update their profile with their every move and to keep location or identifying information away from online social sites.


So in conclusion, Social Networking can be useful and fun when communicating and sharing media but it is getting more important by the day keep everything at least semi-professional to protect reputation and identity.